While President Trump has followed in few of his predecessors’ footsteps, his administration has done the expected in at least one respect: It has undertaken a Middle East peace initiative in its first year. Most recent administrations have done the same, and all have failed. Will Mr. Trump do any better?

The specifics of the initiative are still being hammered out, but some elements are clear. Most administrations start with modest proposals to build trust between the parties and then, when these efforts have bred mutual suspicion and disappointment, they propose a framework for an agreement just as the process moves toward collapse. Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, the chief negotiator, have done the reverse, hinting that Washington will lay down the principles of an agreement at the outset of talks, but without imposing them on either party.

A two-state solution might not be in the cards. While talks toward a plan move forward, the administration will undertake a series of confidence-building measures; these might include a Palestinian pledge to resume security cooperation with Israel in return for the transfer of a bit of land to the Palestinian Authority, a limited settlement freeze and economic aid for West Bank Palestinians. This is standard fare.

Mr. Trump will also try to regionalize the process. In exchange for Israeli flexibility, Arab countries in the Sunni coalition — notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — would extend privileges that Israel has long coveted, including overflight and perhaps some sort of diplomatic status, and offer lavish funding to prop up the Palestinian entity that signs an agreement with Israel. The Obama administration attempted to elicit Saudi involvement, too, but King Abdullah rejected its proposal. As the process evolves, the particulars of these canonical provisions will change as well.