The Middle East Quartet’s decision to prepare a joint report on the obstacles to a two-state solution with recommendations for how to renew a Middle East peace process is probably a turning point in the international community’s diplomacy on the matter. The United States is gradually moving away from being the sole mediator in the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This change is acceptable to the US administration, given Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed efforts in spring 2014 as well as President Barack Obama’s preference for collective diplomacy (as in the Iran and Syria negotiations). The news is also welcome in the Arab world. Despite Obama’s strained relationships with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Arab states concerned with the Palestinian quest for a state continue to be suspicious of America’s traditional pro-Israeli stance. Adding the European Union, Russia and the United Nations as actors in this quest, the Arab world believes, would balance future peacemaking.