Carrot or stick?

Since when in the Israel-Arab conflict has the US become the representative of the Palestinian people, or more correctly the Arabs? The answer to this is, since Obama became President of the USA. By supporting the Palestinian claim for a complete freeze on Israeli building on the West Bank before direct negotiations could take place, Obama put the US in the position of taking the Palestinian position and then negotiating on their behalf with Israel over this issue. After months of negotiations between Israel and the USA, during which Obama initially played hardball and in March 2010 treated PM Netanyahu as a hostile "enemy", Obama finally gave up and accepted a negotiated agreement of a temporary freeze on building in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) for 10 months. This was considered enough time by him to obtain an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But, the Palestinians, not being dummies, played out the subsequent "indirect" negotiations for 9 months, so that nothing was accomplished. Then they figured that Obama would put even more pressure on Israel to continue the freeze, so as soon as the "direct talks" started the Palestinians threatened to bolt unless the freeze was extended. So far that hasn't happened, PM Netanyahu made it clear that to preserve his political credibility and his coalition he would not extend the freeze.

Now the Arab League has met in Libya and given Pres. Obama, as their representative, one month to "persuade" Israel to extend the freeze. So the US has under Pres. Obama become the de facto representative of the Arab League in the negotitions with Israel. This is monstrous! The US is supposed to be neutral, or even pro-Israel, given that Israel is an ally of the US and the only democracy in the region, but not under this President! But, Obama identifies with the Arab/Muslim side and has a "third world" viewpoint. So what is Obama going to do, he has made a clumsy attempt to bribe Netanyahu by offering some choice US concessions, such as improved cooperation with the IDF. But, since Netanyahu and most Israelis do not trust Obama, especially since he refused to accept the legitimacy of Pres. George W. Bush's important letter to PM Sharon regarding future border adjustments, there is little likelihood that any such letter of guarantees from Obama would be accepted by Israel.

Currently Pres. Obama is distracted by domestic politics, namely the upcoming mid-term November elections. So the Mid-East negotiations are on hold as far as he is concerned. But, when he loses badly in these elections, no doubt he will blame the Jews who have retracted their former enthusiastic support for him. Then he will come back to considering what to do to prevent the Palestinians from bolting the negotiations, and he will decide that Israel must be made to concede. So this is my prediction, he will employ the stick rather than the carrot, that so far has not worked. When that happens the pressure on Israel will become immense and the nature of the world order could be severely tested by an irresponsible President. The only protection for Israel from such an outcome will be the anticipated Republican Congress that will oppose Obama on Israel.