But Obama’s peace envoy, George Mitchell, resigned, and the quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and the United States) was sidelined. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s conditional promise to support Palestinian statehood has been rendered meaningless by his government’s provocative settlement policies in the areas that were supposed to comprise the Palestinian state.
比如，四年前，美国总统奥巴马的当选重新燃起了谈判的希望。但奥巴马的和平特使乔治·米切尔（George Mitchell）却辞职了，而四方（联合国、欧盟、俄罗斯和美国）也退出了和平谈判。与此同时，以色列总理内塔尼亚胡的有条件支持巴勒斯坦国的承诺也因以色列政府在被认为是巴勒斯坦国土内的挑衅性定居政策而失去了意义。