Biden can’t end Israel’s war with Hamas. Here’s why he shouldn’t even try

Impossible problems tend to inspire outlandish solutions. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a case in point: just consider the Uganda Scheme (the early-1900s proposal to create a Jewish homeland in Africa) or former political adviser Jared Kushner’s more recent but equally absurd attempt to buy off the Palestinians with a little cash.

The Biden administration should keep the history of such gambits — and the fact that all of them failed — in mind this week as pressure mounts to intervene in the fighting.

It’s easy to understand why leaders around the world want the United States to do something: the skirmish between Israel and Hamas has already killed more than 227 Palestinians and 12 Israelis, trashed Gaza’s decrepit infrastructure, sparked the country’s worst intercommunal violence since the 1930s, and torpedoed the formation of a historic Israeli left-right-Arab governing coalition to replace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the recent election.