Those who had hoped that the proposed peace talks on Syria, which opened in the Kazakh capital on Monday, would stumble at the last minute may feel miffed. They include a desperate Syrian regime, its main backer Iran, and a number of hard-line opposition groups.

Throughout its tragic and tumultuous history spanning nearly a century (beginning roughly with the 1917 Balfour Declaration), the Palestinian national cause has never seen a more surreal and bizarre period as the one it finds itself ensnared in today.