Reuters, "In Kerry's Mideast Announcement, Hints of Success and Challenge": Both Sides Seek "to Avoid Being Blamed"

In a Reuters news analysis article entitled "In Kerry's Mideast announcement, hints of success and challenge" (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/us-palestinians-israel-kerry-idUSBRE96K01F20130721), Arshad Mohammed writes:

"When Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Friday that Israel and the Palestinians had tentatively agreed to resume peace talks after three years, he did so standing alone as dusk fell over the Jordanian capital.

. . . .

'I am not among those who see this as a major breakthrough,' said Khaled Elgindy of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington. 'I am very skeptical because I don't see anything that is fundamentally different.'

The main motivation on both sides to agree to come to the table - assuming that all goes well in the next week or so - may simply be to avoid being blamed for torpedoing negotiations."

Or in other words, John Kerry needs to keep busy, but is not willing to fly to troubled Egypt or to visit his "dear friend" Bashar al-Assad (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/obama-nominates-john-kerry-dear-friend.html) in Damascus.

Will these talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis, if they ever get off the ground, go anywhere? Probably not, but we mustn't keep Kerry from his playacting.