One way to view the current Gaza conflict, as ceasefire negotiations take place this week, is in a regional context, as a proxy war between Islamist powers such as Turkey, Qatar and Iran, and an unusual alliance of Israel and conservative Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The moderate Sunni Arab states fear the rising tide of Sunni extremism as well as Shiite Iran, whose influence is projected through its Islamist proxies — Hamas in Gaza; Hezbollah in Lebanon; and as supporter of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, where about 170,000 have been killed so far.

Both Israel and the Palestinians are now suffering from these internal Muslim divisions. They are also suffering from something else: the Obama administration’s ambivalent foreign policy, and refusal to take a clear leadership role in relation to regional divisions.

As a result, there has been a terrible human cost in blood in the Gaza conflict, and also the perpetuation of a situation where Gaza’s civilians and the legitimate goal of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain hostages of Hamas and its supporters.

The U.S. ambivalence is a product of a hedging of interests, and neo-isolationist tendencies. This is apparent in the Obama administration’s attempt to support both sides to varying degrees, including an inexplicable softness toward the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas. Its preference is for neither side in the regional competition to gain ascendancy, but rather to act as a check against domination by either side. To this end, under Obama, the U.S. has diminished its support for Israel and the moderate Arab regimes. It remains mostly neutral in Syria’s civil war, while pursuing a new relationship with Iran. It has not distanced itself very much from Turkey’s Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As it turned out, its support for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in Egypt backfired because Morsi imposed an Islamist agenda that alienated many Egyptians, resulting in General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi seizing power. After being rebuffed by Egypt for supporting the Brotherhood, Obama seems unwilling to come to terms with the failure of his policy.

The two Palestinian movements, Hamas and Fatah, are themselves a microcosm of the larger regional context. The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is relatively moderate, and oriented toward the West. By contrast, Hamas is Islamist, and committed by its charter to the destruction of Israel.

This division plays into and reflects the fault lines of the regional conflict in a way that is likely to prevent the realization of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israel is unlikely to make concessions unless a binding deal can be struck with Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.

Realization of a state in the West Bank is not likely to happen with the continued threat of rockets from Hamas in Gaza.

If Hamas remains a security threat after this conflict, it will be a victory for the Islamist cause, and for Iran, Qatar and Turkey in particular, whose hostility toward Israel, the region’s only Jewish and Western state, supersedes their professed support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state at peace with Israel.

Unlike the moderate Arab states of Egypt and Jordan, which either share a border with Gaza or are nearby, these potentially victorious Islamist states are geographically far removed from the areas directly affected and have little to risk by supporting regional conflict by proxy.

As Israel attempts to wind down its ground operations and ceasefire talks take place this week, strong U.S leadership will ultimately be required to oust Hamas from Gaza and liberate its Palestinian victims. Obama will have to join the European call for the demilitarization of Gaza.