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Walk to resolve conflict?

If only conflict was this easy to resolve

William Ury, in a TED talk that was subsequently uploaded onto its website, proposes how to resolve conflict, whether small (splitting inheritance) or big (the Middle Eastern conflict): take the third side.

The concept is a bit tough to fathom, and I am still digesting his speech, but essentially he proposes quite a few ideas to resolve conflict:
1. That people need to detach themselves from the situation they are in and put themselves in the shoes of other people, the people on the ground
2. That people can use stories and tales for inspiration, for instance using Abraham's walk across the Middle East as an inspiration and symbol for the Middle East peace talks
3. That sometimes, one just needs to take a walk and that could be all one needs to refresh / calm oneself down, and create breakthrough

The ideas could possibly be linked together, and he uses some anecdotes to indicate how they might work. Watching him describe his ideas, some of them sound very optimistic and over-promising, but if things are always in a deadlock, I guess there is no harm in trying out new ideas that might potentially break new ground in conflict resolution.