This Friday, some twenty diplomats—including representatives of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab League, but not of Israel—will arrive in Paris for a one-day conference on how to revive efforts to create a Palestinian state. The initiative, writes Jeff Robbins, is bound to fail—just like those that preceded it:

The French have said that their purpose is “saving the two-state solution” and “bringing the parties back to the negotiating table.” This is a head-scratcher, since the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected the two-state solution and have refused to negotiate with Israel for many years now, turning down its request for negotiations as recently as last week. It is hard to believe that anyone is fooled at this point by the Palestinians’ song-and-dance, since all they have done [for decades] is to say “no” to the very independent state they say they want—the independent state that would end the occupation that they declare with a straight face is the cause of the conflict. . . .

[Yet in] Paris this week the charade proceeds as before. The Palestinians’ rejection of the very two-state solution they profess to seek will continue. Their rejectionism will be excused [and] the rejectionists coddled. Israel will be lambasted, as always. The end of conflict that ought to be attainable if it were actually desired will remain unattained.

There is little doubt that if Hizballah had participated more intensively in Saturday’s attack, Israeli air defenses would have been pushed past their limits, and far more damage would have been done. Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, trying to look at things from Tehran’s perspective, see this as an important sign of caution—but caution that shouldn’t be exaggerated:

Iran is well aware of the extent and capability of Israel’s air defenses. The scale of the strike was almost certainly designed to enable at least some of the attacking munitions to penetrate those defenses and cause some degree of damage. Their inability to do so was doubtless a disappointment to Tehran, but the Iranians can probably still console themselves that the attack was frightening for the Israeli people and alarming to their government. Iran probably hopes that it was unpleasant enough to give Israeli leaders pause the next time they consider an operation like the embassy strike.

Hizballah is Iran’s ace in the hole. With more than 150,000 rockets and missiles, the Lebanese militant group could overwhelm Israeli air defenses. . . . All of this reinforces the strategic assessment that Iran is not looking to escalate with Israel and is, in fact, working very hard to avoid escalation. . . . Still, Iran has crossed a Rubicon, although it may not recognize it. Iran had never struck Israel directly from its own territory before Saturday.

Byman and Pollack see here an important lesson for America:

What Saturday’s fireworks hopefully also illustrated is the danger of U.S. disengagement from the Middle East. . . . The latest round of violence shows why it is important for the United States to take the lead on pushing back on Iran and its proxies and bolstering U.S. allies.