Over the past decade it has become fashionable in Washington to believe that only when a situation is ‘ripe’—that is, when the belligerents are ‘hurting’—should the United States expend diplomatic capital, and especially the scarcest resource of all, the president's time, to seek a solution. This perspective exhibits common-sense wisdom, but it also harbors a rationale for avoiding tough, complex issues.

Had Arafat accepted Israel's offer at Camp David, the violence in recent months would have been more in the form of a Palestinian civil war. Or as Arafat reportedly asked Clinton when the American president was pushing hard for him to accept Barak's offer: ‘Do you want to attend my funeral?’