As it turns out that the Obama vision for a Middle East peace is a flop. Too much hype and drumming about, but in the end the decade-old political stalemate has become the proverbial elephant in the room. Washington has run out of ideas and the Palestinians have no more chips to put on the table. The Arabs stand by their peace initiative, a great accomplishment that was never really appreciated by the international community. Israel, for the moment, appears politically impregnable.

If the peace talks ever resume they will be an exercise in futility; too much noise but no lasting breakthroughs. The stumbling blocks are real enough and it now appears that the peace train has finally run out of steam. It’s a great loss to all because the alternatives are horrifying. There are too many scenarios to ponder, but none look good for the Palestinians who had struggled heroically for decades, and against unbelievable odds, to achieve their national aspirations.

The two-state solution, with all its drawbacks, had arrived at least 20 years late. Even when it was seriously embraced by the United States, in the early Bush Jr. years, the elements that were needed to put this thing together had already unraveled.

AT one point in time Israel had decided that it can give back Gaza, negotiate over the Golan, delineate final borders with Lebanon and Jordan, but it could never leave the West Bank, or allow the Palestinians to have their independent state there. Whatever the Arab world was putting on the table, and it was a lot, it could never equal in worth the territories Israel calls Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem was always off limits.

It is a sobering reality, one that Arabs and Palestinians never fully absorbed. It is one that Israel had invested in for decades in collusion with the Americans. And as this reality sinks in, the daunting possibilities for the future open up.

The demise of the peace process, the one that was launched in Madrid, negotiated in Oslo and celebrated in the White House Rose Garden is dead. It is foolish to believe otherwise. This is good news for the radicals on both sides of the divide. The Israelis began their systematic dismantling of the peace process right after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a Zionist zealot.

The Palestinians, and the Arabs behind them, hung on but failed to read the scribbling on the wall. The election of both Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush in 2000 was followed by intifada and the siege of Yasser Arafat until his mysterious death in 2004. Gaza was vacated by Sharon but was never free of Israeli hegemony. The war on terror and Israel’s assaults on Lebanon and Gaza left the region in tatters. The Palestinians were slowly nudged off the center stage. Their historic tragedy of Palestine was cleverly diminished.

So it is no wonder that US President Barack Obama’s optimism, and that of the rest of the world, vis-à-vis the prospects of realizing peace in the Middle East, was greatly exaggerated. In truth the road map had become irrelevant as do all previously agreed to understandings and agreements between Israel and the PNA.

None of the future scenarios look good or promising. Jewish settlements in the West Bank have dynamited the foundations of the future Palestinian state. For millions of Palestinian refugees and their host countries the gruesome specter of resettlement is looming large. The best that the PNA can achieve is a sort of enlarged self-rule over disjointed Palestinians enclaves with lucrative economic incentives. Gaza is unlikely to be united, politically, with the West Bank.

This is how the current Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-right allies see things. And this is precisely what they will keep promoting to the Obama administration.

Countries which host large number of Palestinian refugees will reject this scenario — as they had done for years. But the region is in disarray and no sovereign government can survive without economic aid and political support. It is easy to destabilize little countries, employ all sorts of pressure and convince leaders to see things in a different light.

From Israel’s vantage point such schemes can work. Fundamental beliefs can be amended and principles are always negotiable. Such change in perceptions is already happening. In the view of many, Iran is more dangerous to the region than Israel. Extremists hate both Arab governments and Israel. America’s enemies can also be those of Arabs and Israelis. The strategic doctrines that had governed this region for decades are shifting fast.

Israel’s vision for the future of the Middle East will likely permeate through foreign and Arab capitals. Should we be shocked if Obama adopts variations of this new vision soon?

Israel is an occupying power that has the force and the political backing to maintain its occupation. The Palestinians can hardly rely on Arab support as they fight their last political battle. Of course they could resist and they must, but to do so they have to unite and find ways to get out of the entanglements of almost 20 years of fruitless negotiations with their tormentors.

— Osama Al Sharif is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in Jordan.