A positive prelude to an impasse?

The new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks got off to a positive start this week, with the Americans, Israelis and Palestinians all giving an upbeat assessment of the first meetings in Washington on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

This was a warm-up meeting, with the real hard work due to begin at the next meeting, which will take place in Israel or Ramallah, within a fortnight. But the nuances so far are important.

For all the parties, this process is all about taking responsibility. This was the theme of the letter PM Benjamin Netanyahu wrote to the Israeli public. It is the focus of US Secretary of State John Kerry, who remarked on Tuesday: “We cannot pass along to another generation the responsibility of ending a conflict that is in our power to resolve in our time.” And it is central to the PA’s messaging.

This makes the negotiations a high-stake affair, and this is no accident. The US is driving this as a serious process with great ambition. Talk of responsibility appears to be part of the Israelis and Palestinians preparing their public for compromise. Either that or it could represent a cynical strategy for each side to ramp up the blame on the other if the process ­collapses – only time will tell.

The opening act also indicates that concessions are going to come in a trickle, and the two sides will play hardball for a good part of the process – negotiations are planned for nine months, so developments will take time.

Israel is insisting that Jerusalem will remain united and under Israeli control – even though in almost every permutation, the two-state solution has the Palestinians establishing their capital in East Jerusalem. And the Palestinians are insisting on a complete withdrawal from the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that a final agreement will not have room for “a single Israeli” on “our lands”.

Just as President Barack Obama, it would appear, had a clear program for a return to talks when he visited Israel in March, his staff probably have a timetable of what departures from the Israeli and Palestinian opening positions are expected, and when.

But although Obama would probably prefer otherwise, Jerusalem and Ramallah both have minds of their own. Thus far they have complied with his plans. The question now is what persuasion, incentives and leverage he can unleash over the coming weeks and months.