What’s more, Rubin said, with all the fires flaring around the world, it makes little sense that Kerry would devote so much time to a problem that isn’t currently in a position to be resolved.

“Egypt is imploding, and Turkey is going south fast. Antagonism between Europe and America is at an all-time high. China is bullying U.S. allies in southeast Asia. And what is Kerry doing? Off tilting at windmills,” he said.

Nathan Brown, a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for National Peace, told TheDC he finds Kerry’s decision to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian peace “baffling.”

“He may get formal negotiations started if he’s lucky. I can’t see him getting any farther,” Brown said of Kerry’s prospects for success.

Steven Bucci, a foreign policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation, echoed those sentiments.