From the Center for European Reform, this is the CERR podcast.

Welcome to another episode of the CER podcast.

My name is Sophia Besh.

I'm a research fellow here at the Center for European Reform.

And today I'm in conversation with Luigi Scatzieri, also a research fellow at the

CEO, and we're here to talk about the Middle Eastern peace process in 2017. And what we want

to discuss specifically is whether President Trump's commitment to strike the ultimate deal,

in his words, between the two parties, has changed anything and what Europe could do

to find a path out of the quicksend in the Middle East? Louis G. To start with, could you bring us up to

date with what are the relations like right now between the two parties? Where do peace talks stand?

Where are we at? Sure. So right now the peace process is actually completely stuck. Talks broke down in 2014.

These talks were sponsored by the Obama administration, led by John Kerry. They broke down

due to disagreements, and then the war in Gaza erupted, leading to an atmosphere which inserted very many more

differences between the two parties. At the moment, it seems, despite Trump's effort,

it is quite unlikely that talks will resume wholeheartedly. Both sides have few incentives

to actually resume negotiations. Dantiniahu's government is a very right-wing government.

It includes many members who actually advocate annexation of the West Bank.

And as for the Palestinians, they remain very divided between the Palestinian Authority,

on one hand, in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

There are very few incentives for the Palestinians to engage in negotiations because the

political price to pay is very high, and the memory of the negotiation round in 2014 when

actually it was felt that they had made concessions to the Israelis without

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