At TPMCafe, Daniel Levy reviews the Obama administration’s efforts to-date in confronting the Israel-Palestine conflict:

This was not a good week for the Obama administration’s Middle East peace efforts. Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem last Saturday, Secretary Clinton seemed to be praising the distinctively partial limitations that Israel was willing to implement on settlement non-expansion. During the following days in Morocco and Cairo, she walked those remarks back, but the damage had been done.

By Thursday, the American-sponsored Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was sufficiently exasperated to announce that he will not be standing for re-election, and all week the media and political commentary on the U.S. approach was scathing about America’s efforts—even by Middle East standards.

Speaking to the Washington Post, I described the U.S. approach of the past days as amateurish—a perhaps harsh, but unfortunately apt, label. On the positive side, I think the administration folks are themselves aware that this is not going swimmingly. The overall administration scorecard on Middle East peace is slipping into the red.

Continue reading at TPMCafe.

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