{"id":12756,"date":"2009-05-12T15:00:57","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T15:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/malcolm_rifkind_a_middle_east_miracle_might_just_happen\/"},"modified":"2009-05-12T15:00:57","modified_gmt":"2009-05-12T15:00:57","slug":"malcolm_rifkind_a_middle_east_miracle_might_just_happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=12756","title":{"rendered":"Malcolm Rifkind: A Middle East miracle might just happen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So you might expect the mood in the Middle East to be awful, bordering on desperate. Although it is sombre, those who know the region feel that there is all to play for. There are two reasons for this.<\/p>\n<p>The first is the complex personality of Mr Netanyahu. I have met him several times and had informal conversations with him. He is usually reticent on strategy but a master at tactics. I have no doubt that he deeply dislikes the concept of a Palestinian state but that is not the same as saying that he could never endorse one&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>That brings me to the second and, perhaps, decisive reason why the situation is more fluid than might first be apparent. Unlike George W. Bush, Barack Obama is engaging himself in the Israel-Palestine issue from the very outset of his presidency. He is doing so with more goodwill from the Arab world than any recent president.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/comment\/columnists\/guest_contributors\/article6268981.ece\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So you might expect the mood in the Middle East to be awful, bordering on desperate. Although it is sombre, those who know the region feel that there is all to play for. There are two reasons for this. The<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=12756\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,50,144,203,616,151,667,666,567,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-foreign-relations","category-middle-east","category-office-of-the-president","category-politics-in-general","category-president-barack-obama","category-president-george-bush","category-the-palestinianisraeli-struggle","category-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}