bobad: "Demonizing Israel, as the opening assumptions of these talks implicitly do, feeds into the blame-game against Israel, gives Palestinians a free pass they don't deserve and makes that day harder to reach."

Ahh!..My dear fellow, you have hit on the nerve of the pulse...'The Blame Game'! As long as 'We the people' are so obsessed with 'who is more justified' because who get's the lion's share of the blame, nothing will get done!..and THAT is exactly what they(the multinational industrialist bankers) want! That is the exact illusion, of why the PERCEIVED blame is falling on Obama, for his handling of the Middle East. Obama is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing!...for 'them'(see above)...and that is seemingly waffling, as the Mid East gets thoroughly destabilized!...not for Israel's sake, but for the oil's sake...and NAFTA...and the Keystone pipeline! Remember, in case you ever looked into it, that in the NAFTA agreement, 60% of the oil, produced in North America(Canada included) had to be exported overseas! Most likely China and the U.K, and Europe....BUT...we also have a treaty put in place with Saudi Arabia, in 1979, by Henry Kissinger, under the Carter Administration, that we buy their oil, they buy our Treasury Bonds, AND we would not expand our drilling domestically!! The only ways out of that, is if Saudi Arabia falls, let's say to the Muslim Brotherhood, OR turmoil surrounding the Suez makes it virtually impossible to ship the oil. Personally, I think these two events MAY coincide...then we get to BLAME that crap on them, and justify drilling here, shipping the oil overseas, and everyone goes home happy...that is if you are one of the 'elite multinational banker/industrialists'. that probably is a huge reason that the Bank of London, was a primary backer of Obama's first run!..and as long as us 'wee folk' are consumed with bickering with each other, or 'left' vs 'right' (another illusion), everything just goes on schedule, with THAT issue never being addressed!...
....but there IS one glitch....Israel, and IT'S will to survive. What if they take out Iran before Iran gets to sponsor a takeover of the Saudis??...Oh my!...those nasty little Jews, huh?
the whole thing is like a multi-headed snake, looking to devour something, anything...and just might start working on it' own tail. But just keep on looking for someone to blame it on...and you'll miss most of the whole movie!
THEATER! ......
...or maybe Jim is right....."- though I don't think he's bright enough to have spotted it."

BTW, what are you looking at?....spotted owls?

GfS