President-elect Biden will no doubt seek to return to some of the policies of President Obama when it comes to the Middle East, and to much else. But Haviv Rettig Gur notes that Obama, who came to office well-liked by Israelis and Middle Easterners in general, quickly squandered that good will—and sees some lessons in this for the former vice-president:

If there is to be a resolution to the conflict between the Jewish state and a putative Palestinian one, writes Jonathan Michanie, it won’t start with drawing lines on maps or restrictions on where Jews can build houses, but with the Palestinian Authority (PA) abandoning its official anti-Semitism. The PA can, in this regard, learn much from those Arab nations that have recently made peace with Israel: