Allison Hoffman sees parallels between the debt ceiling debate and, ominously enough, Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations:
And the debt-ceiling negotiations in Washington are failing for exactly the same reason the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have historically failed, at Camp David, Wye River, and myriad other retreats. The underlying differences—mutually exclusive claims to a finite piece of land in one case, mutually exclusive views of what government is for on the other—are arguably unbridgeable, even in the best of circumstances. As a result, the incentives for those in charge point toward minimizing personal losses over risking career suicide in service of achieving a sweeping solution that is politically risky and possibly untenable. In both situations the losers are the anonymous masses—Social Security recipients, mortgage-seekers, Israelis and Palestinians trying to live normal lives in Sderot or Gaza—but everyone knows who they would blame for a deal they don’t like, whether it’s Obama or Boehner, Netanyahu or Abbas.
The Dish 