Yossi Beilin, a long-time leader of the Israeli peace movement and an architect of the Oslo Accords, is now working for a Brussels-based think tank where he advocates a “two-state solution” to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The think tank is run by a former deputy minister in the government of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russian ex-president. James Kirchick writes:

[A]dvocating a resolution to the Ukraine crisis more extreme than that proposed by the Kremlin itself marks a sorry but fitting end to Yossi Beilin’s career. Beilin was an architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization establishing the Palestinian Authority as the government of a nascent independent state but which fell to pieces with the second intifada. A decade later and out of public service, he was the main mover behind the extra-governmental Geneva initiative, a draft permanent settlement to the conflict that went nowhere. In light of this string of failed diplomatic proposals, it’s perhaps appropriate that Beilin would push a “two-state solution for Ukraine.”

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.