In an eatery here, 28-year-old Israeli human rights activist Avner Gvaryahu described the first time he came face to face with a Palestinian. He was 19 and serving in the Israel Defense Forces when his unit invaded the home of a Palestinian family in the dead of night. They were there to perform a “straw widow,” a raid during which soldiers forcibly seize control of a Palestinian civilian home.

Peace talks are under way again in Jerusalem. If the past is any guide, the two sides are stymied over difficult issues like settlements and borders. The negotiators badly need a new approach, and one is right beneath their feet, in the Kidron Valley, the deep ravine that runs from the Old City through the West Bank toward the Dead Sea.

There was a time when American power was viewed as decisive in the Middle East. If Washington sneezed there was a sense that the region would catch a cold. Times have changed. Many factors brought us to this point. Perhaps most important is the fact that though the region has changed, U.S. policies have not adapted.

Uprisings against tyrants in Africa and the Middle East. Economic immolation in Europe. Nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea. Canada has never looked so good. Canada’s soft power values of peace, order and good government, ... are the envy of the planet. But if we fail to push our national interests, we’ll be in no position to assert these soft power values.

A Europe that has seen 67 years of post-war peace makes for an inviting haven for the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, who went through a harrowing conflict in the 1990s. For them, entry into the EU is still, above all, a guarantee of security, stability, and peace. In this stricken corner of Europe, the EU’s soft power is very real.

Diplomacy needs to be backed by strength, but the US has plenty without militarizing Asia and the Pacific more than it already has. The peaceful resolution of these conflicts depends upon China having a role in the decision-making process, but this will require the US to step back and forego its desire for primacy in the region. And it will require the same of China.