WASHINGTON â THE success of Secretary of State John Kerry in leading Israelis and Palestinians to resume negotiations is presenting the United States with an immense challenge.  Right now, thereâs almost no chance of achieving a conflict-ending agreement; yet by pressing the Israelis and Palestinians back toward the table, the United States has assumed responsibility for producing one.  Above all, the Americans now need to lower expectations and find a realistic focus for the talks. That means pushing for an agreement on borders and security first, without precluding discussion of Jerusalem and refugees too.  Many have questioned why Mr. Kerry is focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, while Syria is embroiled in civil war, Egypt is in political crisis, and Iran is moving to develop a nuclear weapons capacity. Negotiating this conflict first hardly seems the key to Middle East stability.  But the Israeli-Palestinian problem is a witchesâ brew and always dynamic. A conflict-ending accord may not be possible now, but without a credible negotiation to manage the situation, it will only deteriorate further.  For Israel, the absence of serious negotiations would increase its isolation and rule out hope for a solution that could secure its values as a democratic Jewish state. Palestinians would grow even more polarized and aggrieved; they would find ways to challenge the occupation, emboldening Hamas and other Islamists to attack Israel with increasingly powerful weapons.  And an unresolved Palestinian issue would over time undermine Egyptâs and Jordanâs treaties with Israel, regardless of whether Islamists or secularists hold power in Cairo and Amman. It would also continue to drag down our credibility in the Arab world.  Talking for talkingâs sake is not what I am proposing. That would make matters only worse. But a serious process toward achievable goals could build trust and reduce tensions.  Where to start? Mr. Kerry was right to focus on prisoner releases, like the one Israel announced over the weekend. In addition, there might be agreements by the Israelis to effectively freeze new settlements and by the Palestinians to refrain from United Nations action or taking Israel to the International Criminal Court, along with an end of incitement to hatred in the Palestinian media. Those can buy time and political cover for both sides to identify larger shared interests to negotiate about, including enhancing Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation and allowing Palestinians to expand their economic projects in Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israelâs control.  Instead of chasing the quixotic endgame of a deal on issues of identity like Jerusalem and refugees, the broad theme of the negotiations should be about the territorial ones â land and security. Specifically the focus should be on defining a border for a Palestinian state. Even under this narrower definition, success will be excruciatingly difficult.  Paradoxically, Mr. Kerryâs personal success in getting negotiations going, and his stake in their success, now open him to the serious possibility of failure. The talks are starting in Washington, not in the region; he has designated himself the only spokesman for the very delicate start-up process, not the parties, and at least for now neither side is prepared to discuss publicly â or convey directly to each other â the parameters that will guide the negotiations. Nobody appears to have a stake in the talks except the United States, and Mr. Kerry.  Yet ownership is critical. Of the three historic breakthroughs in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, all were initiated by the parties themselves: secret Israeli-Egyptian contacts in 1977 preceded Anwar el-Sadatâs trip to Jerusalem and offered Jimmy Carter a chance to broker an agreement; quiet negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, facilitated by Norway, produced the Oslo breakthrough in 1993; years of discreet contacts between Israel and Jordan led to their peace treaty in 1994. In each instance, the United States contributed â at times decisively â but only after the parties themselves had made very difficult choices.  There are three core challenges as the latest talks begin.  First, the endgame. A conflict-ending accord that resolves the core issues â borders, Jerusalem, security, refugees and recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people â and that also adjudicates all claims and forswears further ones seems almost unimaginable. The two sides donât yet share a common concept for reaching it.  Aaron David Miller, a former adviser and negotiator for the State Department, is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the author of âThe Much Too Promised Land: Americaâs Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.â
Although an agreement to end the conflict is not in sight, keeping it from exploding again is critical in todayâs volatile Middle East.