John Kerry’s appointment as secretary of state was the best possible news for anyone who hoped to extract the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations from their current deadlock. Kerry is the right man in the right place. It’s only too bad that we can’t add “at the right time,” too, but in the Middle East, it’s never the right time. It’s always too early or too late. There’s always one side that isn’t prepared, ready, or primed to make the changes, gestures, or concessions necessary in order to get somewhere, or at least to start trying to get there. As for the other side, it’s always too late. It always happens after the peace camp has disintegrated, after any trust was shattered, after their proposals were rejected and the right wing parties have come to power.

Kerry’s biggest problem is that he believes he can actually “make history” by solving this conflict. If the talks he has held with senior Israeli officials until now teach us anything, it is that the man is an optimist. He thinks that a permanent agreement is possible. He believes in the feasibility of a solution and contends that it is doubtful whether we will ever have the same opportunity again, so we have to take advantage of it now. By the time Kerry realizes that there is no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict so it simply has to be managed instead, it will already be too late. The diplomatic graveyards in the region are packed with the bodies of Kerry’s predecessors. The one corpse that is still somewhat warm belongs to former US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, who arrived here with the exact same energy exactly four years ago. He had the backing of President Barack Obama, who was just starting his presidency and who gave Mitchell complete authority to do what he thought was necessary. He received an open ticket, and he built a second American embassy here, with means and emissaries and research and budgets. And yet, he also ended up in that vast, icy wasteland, where generations of peace proponents eventually end up, not before causing enormous damage to the already rickety relationship between the parties.

Based on what we now know, Kerry has no interest in any slapdash intrigues. He wants to enter into real negotiations and come out with a permanent agreement at the end. He is adopting Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni’s approach of starting with security and borders, since these are the least complicated issues. Only after they are resolved can the parties move on to the next stage. We’ve already heard allusions to this approach during Obama’s speech in Jerusalem [March 21]. It was the same plan that the president sketched out in greater detail during his first term, using the 1967 borders as a starting point for territorial swaps and a comprehensive security package that satisfies Israel.

This is a mistake. By the time Kerry realizes that there is no leader in Israel today who can sketch out any border whatsoever that the Palestinians would consider even vaguely reminiscent of something worth talking about … well, by then, his term will be over. Throughout the course of human history, there has never been anyone better than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when it comes to wasting time and eviscerating diplomatic maneuvers. There is trouble in store for anyone who tries to squeeze borders out of him. He is surrounded by Minister of Trade and Industry Naftali Bennett and former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, and the right wing of his own Likud party will not even deign to consider any Palestinian state whatsoever. Nor is there any political or diplomatic counterbalance that might tip the scales in the opposite direction. Minister of Finance Lapid isn’t ready yet, and Livni is too weak.