Robert Satloff , of the Washingon Institute for Near East Policy returns from a Mideast tour with a rather more optimistic view than we generally hear and one warning from the Egyptian Prime Minister:

[T]he Institute delegation was struck by two comments, one delivered by a senior Israeli intelligence officer and the other by Egyptian prime ministerAhmed Nazif. The officer expressed serious concern that the continued delegitimization of Israel in the international arena poses a strategic threat to his country; in fact, he placed the problem near the top of his overall threat assessment. And Prime Minister Nazif warned that a dangerous development is under way in the Arab-Israeli arena -- the transformation of the longstanding nationalist/territorial conflict between Arabs and Israelis into a religious-based conflict between Muslims and Jews. In that scenario, he feared, the problem may evolve beyond the collective power of the parties to resolve it.

It's a short account . Read it all.

Clarice Feldman

h/t:Robert Lieber