US envoy George Mitchell’s visit to the Middle East this week serves as a reminder of the challenges that must be overcome if a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal is to ever be reached. One of these is that the Obama administration’s effort to push the Palestinian-Israeli peace process forward is being hampered by the distraction tactics of groups and individuals who fail to see the urgent need to end this decades-long conflict. The strategy that they employ is simple: Draw attention away from the issue of Israeli occupation and toward Iran, which they portray as a far greater threat to regional security. Campaigns that rely on this method tend to downplay the destabilizing impact that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory has on the region, and argue that the Islamic Republic is the main – or indeed the only – source of regional violence. >>>
