A s if a peaceful Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t enough of a challenge, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to spend her holiday chasing an even more unattainable ideal: peace in the Middle East.

So Clinton left her and President Barack Obama’s trip to Asia to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas. She met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel (who was slightly more accommodating after his romance with failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney did not prove fruitful). She met with President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt. She met with leaders of the Palestinian Authority. The end result was a cease-fire that got photos of teddy bears amid rubble off the front page.