The United States just made Middle East peace harder

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and was a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration; Michael Singh is the Lane-Swig senior fellow and managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and was senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council from 2007 to 2008. Sizing up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict upon assuming office, President Obama decided Israeli settlements were the problem, and he insisted on a total freeze on construction. What followed were eight years of deadlock, the deterioration of U.S. relations with Israelis and Palestinians alike, and widespread disillusionment with the two-state solution. -- More...