Historians are sometimes divided into lumpers and splitters. The splitters like to chop problems up into lots of small bits. The lumpers like to link them altogether.

Would-be Middle East peacemakers can be categorised in the same way. The lumpers want a "comprehensive peace settlement" that links together all the problems in the region - Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Israel-Palestine, even Iran. The splitters want to deal with all these problems separately.