A rise in radicalism, a decline of nation-state stability and a transcendent sectarian divide have resulted in every country in the Mideast except Oman being involved in some kind of armed conflict. The region's roiling chaos has eclipsed the fact that the Mideast peace process is not only still stalled, but seems unmovable by outside envoys.

The peace process is "moribund," Atlantic Magazine journalist Jeffrey Goldberg told an editorial writer. Goldberg, who gave the keynote address at Sunday night's Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas annual event, added: "There is no peace process and there won't be for some time to come. Neither side — not the right-wing government in Israel, nor the Palestinian Authority — seems to be in the position to want to do the things that need to get done in order to bring it about."

Neither, seemingly, are world leaders. President Obama, working through the dogged diplomacy of Secretary of State John Kerry, was not able to make an effective breakthrough. Nor was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who recently resigned as a special Middle East envoy representing the so-called "quartet" of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

"Whoever is going to replace him will need to bring a lot of experience, personal commitment and international status to do the job," Roey Gilad, consul general of Israel to the Midwest recently told an editorial writer.

No outside individual, or institution, can substitute for Israeli and Palestinian leaders and societies taking the risks with each other and with their own constituencies to make the necessary concessions to end the destabilizing stalemate. Regional conflicts are reason to be cautious. But their intensity and interconnectedness suggest that they may endure for years and even decades. So they cannot be waited out.

"The status quo long-term is not sustainable, so some event will occur sometime down the road that will force Israel to have to act," Goldberg said, adding: "And chances are, because it's the Middle East, that it will happen when conditions aren't ideal across the region."

Accordingly, Israeli and Palestinian leaders should seize the initiative and make the tough but necessary choices to come to an accord.