Aaron David Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served as an advisor to secretaries of state on U.S. Middle East policy and the Arab-Israeli peace process. Twitter: @aarondmiller2
Rabin was famously, and brutally, blunt: he thought Americans like me were hopelessly naive about the Mideast. But his kind of honest leadership is missing in Israel today
Despite abundant predictions of doom and of Democratic drift, Israel - with all its imperfections and transgressions - remains the only country in a violent, dysfunctional region sharing any values and interests with the U.S.
This time, it will likely backfire.
The Gaza conflict is the poster child for America and Europe’s inability to ‘fix’ the Middle East. Any Israel/Hamas cease-fire deal will at best be an interim one, hostage to the broader impasse in the peace process.
Israelis and Palestinians should give a busy U.S. president reason to play a bigger role in peace: by undertaking serious talks