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LISA MULLINS: Secretary Clinton arrived in Jerusalem last night from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. She had promised 900million dollars in U.S. aid for the Palestinians at an international donors conference for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. Clinton's pledge may boost regional morale, but it's just a start, as we hear in this report from The World's Aaron Schachter.

AARON SCHACHTER: An official with the European Union may have summoned it up best. External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner said the aid for Gaza is a good thing, but the money is just a stopgap unless you have peace and stability in the Middle East.

BENITA FERRERO WALDNER: There cannot be any lasting prosperity without peace, and no peace without partners who will take risks to achieve it. So therefore, we need to return to substantive and comprehensive peace talks, and regional partners have indeed a key role to play for bringing a long awaited and much needed peace.

AHMER HAMZAWI: The conference on Gaza has reaffirmed the international, and to a great extent, the Arab position. Now it is time for a Palestinian reconciliation.

SCHACHTER: Ahmer Hamzawi is with the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. He says the Gaza war initially pushed Middle Eastern countries apart, but now former adversaries are speaking again.

HAMZAWI: Many realize that, well, I mean, we are heading nowhere as Arabs if we cannot put the region back together. I mean, you end up losing even your relative advantages in assisting the Palestinians while negotiating with the Israelis. So there is some substance, but we have to wait and see because we were depressed as Arabs many times in the past by initial reconciliation efforts which never materialized in tangible results.

SCHACHTER: There's always cause for pessimism in the Middle East. Samir Altaqi of the Orient Center for International Studies in Damascus is skeptical that Arabs can get the job done, but he says it's not entirely their fault.

SAMIR ALTAQI: If this region will continue to be an area of competition between big powers, it will shift easily toward crisis management rather than crisis resolution. What is needed now is a major understanding and consensus between the Russians and the Americans regarding some main crisis in the region like Iran, like Afghanistan, like the others.

SCHACHTER: Nations and non-state actors in the Middle East have often been pawns for more powerful players like Saudi Arabia or Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, but once play begins, it's not uncommon for the masters to lose control. A case in point is the launching last week of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel. Whoever fired those rockets was probably not following orders. It's the kind of thing that can spiral out of control and inflame passions in the region. That's why many people here hope that the U.S. aid to Gaza and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit signal increased engagement in the region by the Obama administration. Sami Moubayed is Editor-in-Chief of the Syrian magazine Forward. He says the new U.S. President needs to do a lot of damage control.

SAMI MOUBAYED: The policies of the Bush administration, all they did was lead to more radicalization in regional elections. The Bush administration produced a Hamas in power, the Bush administration produced Ahmedinejad in power; the Bush administration produced a failed state in Iraq, a failed state in Lebanon, a failed state in Pakistan. It systematically worked on destroying the Palestinian National Authority.

SCHACHTER: Then again, the U.S. has a financial crisis on its hands, and it may be some time before Washington can turn its full attention to the Middle East. For The World, I'm Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

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