While former diplomats, foreign-policy experts, and political commentators mainly disparaged last week’s conference in Manama on how to improve the economic situation of the Palestinians, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld—a professor of management who participated in the gathering and chaired one of the panels—sees reasons for optimism. He writes:

On Thursday, when the news broke that Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz had agreed to form a national-unity government, pundits and politicians on both left and right seemed to agree that the incumbent prime minister had managed to outmaneuver his rival. But as details of the coalition agreement emerged, this interpretation began to seem less convincing. Haviv Rettig Gur explains: