Obama rules

"Yet Mitchell did not attempt to talk to Hamas or even visit the Gaza Strip during the visit. Like many others in the West and in the Arab world, he appears to believe it is possible to rebuild Gaza yet ignore its Hamas-led government. His itinerary took him to Ramallah, Cairo, Amman and Riyadh - but not to Damascus. He cancelled a visit to Turkey after a high-level Israeli-Turkish clash at the Davos World Economic Forum - as if this somehow rendered Ankara's own Middle East mediation efforts, past and future, less relevant."