Obama's intifada

There appear to be few prospects of renewed peace discussions between Israel and the PA under the present circumstances. Abu Rodeinah, spokesman for PA Pres. Abbas was interviewed on the BBC's Hardtalk program, and was asked why the Palestinians could not give up their precondition that all Israeli building be frozen, including East Jerusalem, so that talks could restart and his answer was in effect, if Pres. Obama requires a building freeze in East Jerusalem we can't ask for less.

Meanwhile Palestinian violence in East Jerusalem, that reached a climax last week when rumors that Israel was going to "attack" the Mosques on the Temple Mount (Har Habayit, Haram al Sharif) proved of course to be completely untrue. Even though Palestinian leaders called for Arabs to "defend" the Temple Mount, it was soon clear that there was nothing in effect to defend against. In the past these rumors were enough to result in anti-Jewish progroms, but now the security forces quashed the riots and the violence has died down. However, all commentators agree that there is an air of frustration and violence in the air and a full-fledged uprising, an intifada, is possible. This would be an insurrection against the Israeli "occupation" rather than a war, since the PA is not capable of fighting a war with the IDF, even though Hamas would like them to.

If there is another intifada, although having had three before and not having achieved anything you'd think that the Palestinians might have learned a lesson, it would result from and be directly attributable to Pres. Obama. It should be called Obama's intifada! It was clear that he was twisting PM Netanyahu's arm by meeting him in the White House without any photographers or journalists present, and trying to force him to accept a freeze on all building in East Jerusalem. Netanyahu made it abundantly clear before he left that he could not do this, and still retain his coalition and remain PM. Perhaps Obama wanted to deliberately destroy his coalition in order to get a more cooperative PM, such as Tzipi Livni of Kadima, but if so he didn't succeed. So now he has contented himself with currying favor with the Muslims while trying to isolate Israel within the international community. No wonder the Palestinians want to "test" Israel's resolve and no wonder Obama's policies have brought us to this unfortunate state of affairs.

There are two ways out. Either Israel caves, or Israel stands firm, and in due course once again defeats the Palestinian uprising. Also, if Obama continues to defer any actual action on Iran (talk is cheap) then Israel might be forced to take action. That might further isolate Israel within the international community, but many countries, not least the Arab States, would heave a sigh of relief if Israel were successful.