Beginning with the election of US President Barak Obama and ending with two years of Donald Trump's presidency, the decade between 2009 and 2019 was a tumultuous period, to say the least, for the Israeli–Arab conflict and for the EU's involvement in it. In between the elections of the two American Presidents, momentous events such as the 2011 Arab Spring, the 2014 rise of Islamic State, the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, and the still ongoing Syrian civil war – deeply affected both the conflict and maybe the EU even more. Add to that massive internal upheavals in the EU in light of Brexit and the refugee crisis, two more wars in Gaza and continued rule throughout the decade by both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who re-assumed office in March 2009, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, whose four-year mandate ended as the decade began. To further complicate the picture, President Trump shook up both the Israeli–Arab conflict and the EU by moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, cutting funds to the Palestinians, exiting the nuclear deal with Iran, and declaring in the same week as he was inaugurated that he did not care if the EU split apart or stayed together (interviewed by The Times 2017).

While this period ended with high uncertainty about where both the conflict and the EU were heading, it is easy to forget today that it started with a lot of optimism in Europe about what President Obama could do for the conflict. Unsurprisingly, the EU and many of the Member States were among the foremost believers.