By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian leaders held their first direct peace talks in 20 months on Thursday and agreed to meet every two weeks to try to settle the six-decade conflict within a year.
Among the many obstacles are the deep divisions among the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves and the possibility of violence by hardliners who may wish to disrupt the effort.
Here are some questions and answers about the talks.
WHAT HAPPENED?
The only tangible result was an agreement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet again Sept. 14-15 in the Middle East and then every two weeks thereafter.
According to former Sen. George Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy for Middle East peace, the two sides believe they should start by trying to reach a framework agreement, rather than a fully elaborated peace treaty.
WHAT IS A FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT?
It is typically a short document that would lay out the basic political compromises on the core issues such as borders, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees that the two sides would have to make to reach a peace agreement.
Rather than specifying precise borders, however, such a document might describe the percentage of West Bank land that Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war that the Palestinians would get to establish a state.
It might also say whether Israel would swap other territory so as to ensure the Palestinians end up with the equivalent of 100 percent of the land Israeli forces seized in 1967.
The document, which analysts said could be only a few pages long, might also sketch out the treatment of Jerusalem, which both sides claim, as well as to what extent, if at all, Palestinian refugees might have a right live in Israel itself.
WHAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN AT THE SEPT. 14-15 TALKS?
The biggest issue will be what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will do about Israel's partial moratorium on new construction in the West Bank when it expires on Sept. 26.
All sides agree this will be a major challenge and a litmus test for whether the current peace effort is serious.
Abbas has threatened to pull out of the talks if settlement activity resumes, while Netanyahu's coalition rests on the support of small pro-settler parties eager to build more.
"From now until the 26th, the issue of settlements is going to continue to dominate the discussion," said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Palestinian Authority official now at American Task Force on Palestine, a Washington-based advocacy group.
"There is an interest, and there has been a push, to move it from the public eye -- from something that is to be negotiated and discussed in the press -- into something to be worked out within the negotiating room," he said.
HOW DOES THIS PEACE PROCESS DIFFER FROM OTHERS?
Timing. Mitchell noted that previous U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton, sought to craft a peace deal in their final year in office.
Obama, in contrast, took up the issue during his first week on the job, naming Mitchell as his special envoy two days after his inauguration.
"They ran out of time at the end," Mitchell said, without citing any of Obama's predecessors by name. "Neither success nor failure is predetermined or guaranteed, but it isn't going to be because time ran out at the end."
Martin Indyk, a veteran U.S. official who held key jobs on Middle East peace at the National Security Council and the State Department under former U.S. President Bill Clinton -- said the talks seemed to be off to a good start.
"What you have is something consistent with trying to move quickly -- a framework agreement rather than a comprehensive agreement and the leaders taking the lead on the negotiations rather leaving to the negotiators to bat it back and forth," said Indyk, who is now director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank. "It's an auspicious beginning." (Editing by Eric Walsh)
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