7. Thou shalt not rush.
The Arab-Israeli conflict will not likely be solved by bold new ideas but by tireless work on the old. It may not be definitively solved in our lifetime. Some disputes drag on for decades -- even if they garner less press coverage. The independence movement in Baluchistan began in 1948, the same year as the first Israeli-Arab war, and has claimed roughly the same number of lives (20,000) without a resolution. The Korean War started the same year, and six decades and five million deaths later, has (like Israel and the Arabs) produced a truce but no peace deal. Last week, North Korea even declared that six-decade-old armistice "null and void." Publicizing expectations for a final resolution after a year of talks was setting oneself up for disappointment. This time around, the administration's soft-pedaling of expectations for a peace agreement is a welcome change -- not because a deal is an unworthy objective, but because it can't be forced.
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