On core issues — Jerusalem, borders, settlements — impasse has prevailed.
We may disagree on borders, settlements, refugees or other contentious Arab-Israeli issues.
US ideas on borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees cover the wearily familiar "core" issues of the conflict.
American officials, for their part, have been quietly floating various ideas on borders, settlements and the rights of Palestinian refugees.
"The parties had agreed that the core issues -- permanent borders, settlements, Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem -- would be addressed later," the narrator says.
What Israelis and Palestinians most need now is a firm American hand to guide them to a fair and workable bargain on borders, settlements and security, allowing the creation of a territorially viable Palestinian state.
One could fill a library with all the books, research documents, and policy papers that have been written on the different elements that make up the two-state framework, such as borders, settlements, water, refugees, and Jerusalem.
Tied to this February deadline, he would also like the Palestinians to agree to a new "framework" for the final-status talks (on borders, settlements, water, Jerusalem and refugees) which, Mr Barak believes, could then be concluded by December 2000.
Lieberman has repeatedly promised to bring down the government if Olmert even discusses "core issues" at Annapolis such as borders, settlements and the rights of Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel.
That land dispute made it clear that the larger issues of the "final status" talks -- borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees, among others -- would not be resolved even broadly by the original target date of Feb. 13.
