Modest Progress Should Be Welcomed in the Middle East
While Israeli and Palestinian leaders have each taken flak for recent cooperation, it makes sense for both sides to seek stability.
It’s a start.
Photographer: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images
Stability remains a rare commodity in the Middle East. That’s all the more reason to welcome modest signs of rapprochement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders — and for both sides to build on them.
Admittedly, conditions hardly look propitious for peace. Israel’s fragile ruling coalition is split between hardliners firmly opposed to an independent Palestinian state, leftists, centrists and even an Islamist party. The Palestinians are even more divided, with Hamas dominating the Gaza Strip and making inroads into the West Bank, where the deeply unpopular Palestinian Authority holds sway. Meanwhile, the U.S. has its hands full trying to fend off crises from Ukraine to Iran, and has little bandwidth to broker a new Middle East peace process.