Stability remains a rare commodity in the Middle East. That’s all the more reason to welcome modest signs of rapprochement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders — and for both sides to build on them.
Admittedly, conditions hardly look propitious for peace. Israel’s fragile ruling coalition is split between hardliners firmly opposed to an independent Palestinian state, leftists, centrists and even an Islamist party. The Palestinians are even more divided, with Hamas dominating the Gaza Strip and making inroads into the West Bank, where the deeply unpopular Palestinian Authority holds sway. Meanwhile, the U.S. has its hands full trying to fend off crises from Ukraine to Iran, and has little bandwidth to broker a new Middle East peace process.
That doesn’t mean incremental progress can’t be made. In recent months, Israel has taken some promising steps. It has tentatively agreed to allow Palestinian companies to set up 4G mobile networks, which the World Bank has described as critical to developing a Palestinian digital economy. In late December, Israeli officials promised to legalize the status of several thousand Palestinians and to provide more travel passes for Palestinian officials and businesspeople. Most important, Israel has offered more than $180 million in loans so the PA can pay salaries and forestall a fiscal crisis.
