Now the irony bitter irony is that at this particular moment this fight is over process. It's not over the substance of the final status agreement. It's over how do you get to the discussion of a final status agreement. So our hope is that we can work a way through this, but in the end the parties are going to have to make that decision--it’s not our decision.

You know, we can cajole, we can leverage, we can offer one thing or another to try to be helpful, but they have to make the fundamental decision.

In my judgment, both leaders have made courageous and important decisions up until now. You know, for Prime Minister Netanyahu to release prisoners is a painful, difficult political step to take, enormously hard, and and the people with Israel have been incredibly supportive and patient in giving him the space to be able to do that in exchange for the the deal being kept of the release of prisoners and not going to the UN.

Unfortunately, the prisoners weren't released on the Saturday they were supposed to be released. And so day went by, day two went by, day three went by. And then in the afternoon, when they were about to maybe get there, 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem and, poof, that was sort of the moment. We find ourselves where we are.

Both sides, whether advertently or inadvertently, wound up in positions where things happened that were unhelpful. Clearly, going to these treaties is not helpful, and we have made that crystal-clear. There are limits to the amount of time the president and myself can put into this, especially if the parties can’t commit to being there in a serious way. I believe there is a way to get into substantive discussions…I hope the parties will be able to find a way back. We’re working with them to try to do so. But they have to — again, I repeat — they have to make that fundamental decision. And I hope they will. But, you know, we have an enormous amount on our plate. Given the rest of the agenda, if they’re not prepared to commit to actually be there in a serious way.