Even as President Biden presses Israel to define clearly the goals of its war against Hamas in Gaza, he is turning his eyes to a much larger endgame: the ever-elusive hope for a lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
The question is how hard Mr. Biden intends to work for that outcome.
Biden administration officials also doubted whether Israel’s increasingly hawkish leadership was interested in any plausible deal.
Unlike his recent predecessors, Mr. Biden did not appoint a special envoy for Middle East peace or task his secretary of state with trying to forge an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
“It was not a tier-one policy objective to solve this conflict,” said David Makovsky, a former peace process negotiator in the Obama administration.
Persons:
Biden, Israel, —, Israel’s, Mahmoud Abbas, ”, David Makovsky, Obama, “
Organizations:
Trump, Palestinian
Locations:
Gaza, Israel, Palestinian, China, Ukraine, United States, Middle, Saudi Arabia