President Obama’s visit to Ireland yesterday bookended a tumultuous week in Washington. After a blow-up with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over whether the 1967 borders with land swaps should be the starting point of negotiations or a concession that Israel provides as part of a negotiation — President Obama, unlike every president before him, decided it should be the former — Obama, in his AIPAC speech on Sunday, tried to reassure Israel and the majority of Americans who steadfastly support the Jewish state that Israel’s survival is of paramount concern.

Now the president is in Ireland praising the Good Friday Peace Agreement that ended decades of strife in Northern Ireland. He praised the ability of former adverseries to “reimagine their relationships,” in a not-too-subtle hint to the Israelis and Palestinians that if Ireland’s feuding Catholics and Protestants can make peace, so can they.