Welcome to Mideast Peace, President Obama

Welcome to Mideast Peace, President Obama

In Haaretz, Aluf Benn unintentionally reminds us that America’s foreign policy challenges in the Middle East are no less daunting or intractable today than they were yesterday. He offers his advice to the new president on the small matter of Arab-Israeli peace, saying to “forget the Palestinians for now and move forward on the Syrian track.”


In a Carnegie Endowment paper, Nathan Brown is equally pessimistic, arguing that without a significant international push, the Fatah-Hamas divide is likely to deepen, putting a peace deal even farther out of reach.  And as to the prospects for a significant international push: “It is not clear if any of the international actors with cards to play feel they have enough to gain from Palestinian reconciliation.” Read the full paper here.