Obama's High Commissioner

Caroline Glick
June 12, 2009

(Worthwhile to read this to it's conclusion.)

Ahead of his current trip to the Middle East, US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell made what might have been construed as a positive step in Israel's direction. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mitchell said that he and Obama wish to restart peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians immediately.

The reason Mitchell's pronouncement might have been interpreted as a move in Israel's direction is because until he made his call for negotiations, recent pronouncements on Israel and the Palestinians by the president and his senior advisers have given the uniform impression that the US no longer favors a negotiated settlement of the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Through their obsessive focus on Israeli building activities in Judea and Samaria, Obama and his advisers have sent regional leaders the message that they define their role here not as mediators, but as agents for the Palestinians against Israel. Consequently, far from giving the sense that they seek a peace deal that will be acceptable to Israelis and Palestinians alike, they have convinced the Israelis and the Palestinians - as well as much of the Arab world - that the US intends to coerce Israel into accepting a settlement that sacrifices Israeli security and national needs on the altar of maximalist Palestinian ambitions.

This is the view that Fatah leader and putative Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas expressed in his interview with The Washington Post last month ahead of his visit with Obama. As Abbas put it, the Americans "can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You have to comply with the conditions.'"

Abbas added that he will "wait for Israel to freeze settlements," and that until he receives this and other Israeli concessions, "we can't talk to anyone."

In other words, in light of the administration's apparent hostility and uncompromising stance toward Israel, Abbas sees no reason to negotiate anything with the Israelis.
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