A Washington-based think tank that is viewed as one of the primary sources of foreign policy advise for US President Barack Obama is recommending that Israel surrender control of Jerusalem to an international body.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) correctly determined that the issue of Jerusalem is the primarily obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
As such, in order to move forward with the land-for-peace process as a whole, CAP has suggested that a third party administer and police the city while both Israel and the Palestinians maintain their claims to sovereignty until an agreement can be reached.
CAP expects that agreement would take a very long time to reach, if ever, but that in the meantime the rest of the conflict could be concluded.
There are concerns in Israel that Obama will adopt the recommendation considering his close ties to CAP and his overriding determination to oversee an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement.
Bloomberg News reported that "CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the [Democratic party] platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign."
It was also noted that Obama adopted many of CAP's policy recommendations while he was still president-elect.