“As President Barack Obama prepares for his first trip to Israel as president, no one doubts we will see a strong push to get both Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. Yet, doves on both sides acknowledge it would take nothing short of a miracle to get down to the business of building a real peace.

Understanding the true barriers are key to predicting where the pressure to compromise will be coming from. Counter to popular belief, despite the significant demands put on Jerusalem by Washington over the past five years which resulted in a 10-month moratorium on settlement building, the core of the conflict is neither the settlements nor Jerusalem.

A closer look at the situation on the ground will allow Obama to understand two major realities before he attempts to jump-start any peace process. The first is that the two-state model today is only applicable to Israel and the West Bank; there can be no contiguous Palestine State in West Bank and Gaza with Hamas in power in the latter territory. Second, the crux of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is rooted in the Palestinian ‘Right of Return,’ the collective belief in a right of return to homes in Israel that were once part of mandatory “Palestine” and which is central to Palestinian national identity.”

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