Peace later

The fact that Israel and the PA were unable to come to a two-state agreement before the end of the year and before the Bush Administration leaves office has been mentioned as if they were just near the point of consummation. But, in fact there is no possibility of an agreement, despite the optimistic assessments of Pres. Bush, US Secty of State Condoleeza Rice and Quartet representative Tony Blair. Not only did Olmert and Abbas, despite prodigious backslappings and talk about progress, not agree on any major points, but both of them precluded any agreement when they both stated that no agreement is possible without including Gaza! Abbas cannot be seen to make an agreement with Israel and leave out 1.5 million (one third) of the Palestinian population, and Israel cannot make any agreement with the PA on the West Bank without the Gazans, who could destroy any agreement the next day.
The fact is that Hamas is entrenched in Gaza, now with an army of ca. 20,000, well armed and well trained by Iran, and they aren't going to give it up. How am I sure of this, well, apart from the obviousness that Hamas and the PA/Fatah are incompatible enemies (and neither believe in democracy or compromise), the Egyptians just told us so. The Egyptian Govt. made a statement saying that it will not tolerate an "Emirate" on its borders (referring to Gaza under Hamas) and that is why they have closed the Rafah crossing into Gaza permanently. So why is everyone blaming Israel for the blockade of Gaza when their own Arab "brothers" are doing it to them. The reasons given by Egypt is that Hamas deliberately torpedoed the talks under its auspices between Hamas and Fatah in order to arrive at a national Palestinian Government, and by breaking off all discussions they are also in breach of the Riyadh agreement that was supposed to resolve the Palestinian dispute. But, actually the reason is that the Mubarak regime cannot allow an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, his main opposition in Egypt, to gain a strong permanent foothold on his borders.
Since Iran supports them and since they are Islamist radicals there is no possibility of an agreement with Fatah while they continue to murder Fatah leaders. Meanwhile on the West Bank Israel is allowing the PA to bring in trained and armed police in order to put down any Hamas supporters there.
If Israel takes action against Hamas in Gaza, since they are bombarding southern Israel every day, then Hizbollah (now rearmed and with 4 times as many rockets as before) will react and attack Israel as it did in 2006 thus triggering the Second Lebanon war. The axis of Hamas-Hizbollah and Iran are a threat not only to Israel but to Egypt and to the so-called "moderate" Arab States. So the prospects for an Israel-Palestine solution to the Middle East dispute are in fact the opposite to what has been the conventional wisdom. Only if the threat of Iran and its proxies are removed, only then can a peace agreement be negotiated between Israel and representatives of all the Palestinian Arabs.
This is the actual situation that the new Obama Administration will face when it comes into office, and wise heads in Washington are already advising Pres-elect Obama not to expect a quick resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict during his term.
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For a pragmatic assessment of Palestinian intentions see Moshe Yaalon's (former C-in-C of the IDF) article in "Azure" magazine at http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=474