Senator Obama is visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories and using his brief visit to assure both the Israelis and the Palestinians that he will work for peace if he is elected. His visit is prompting both hope and resignation among the two different audiences (The New York Times – Mideast Sees More of the Same if Obama Is Elected):
For what feels like forever, Israelis and their Arab neighbors have been hopelessly deadlocked on how to resolve the Palestinian crisis. But there is one point they may now agree on: If elected president, Senator Barack Obama will not fundamentally recalibrate America's relationship with Israel, or the Arab world.
From the religious center of Jerusalem to the rolling hills of Amman to the crowded streets of Cairo, dozens of interviews revealed a similar sentiment: the United States will ultimately support Israel over the Palestinians, no matter who the president is. That presumption promoted a degree of relief in Israel and resignation here in Jordan and in Israel's other Arab neighbors.
The report suggests that Senator Obama's visit is not generating a sense of hope and optimism for a breakthrough in the ever-stalled Mideast peace process, and it's now clear that any renewed American effort will most likely take place under the existing Quartet sponsorship rather than a new post-election peace initiative by either U.S. presidential candidate. This means that there is still overwhelming international support for a Mideast peace agreement, and now, thanks to the Arab Initiative, there is support from Israel's Arab neighbors as well.
The American Diplomacy website has posted an essay entitled Reconciling the Arab Initiative With Israel's Core Requirements for Peace in which Professor Alon Ben-Meir, a professor at New York University with extensive contacts among both Arabs and Israelis, argues that the current situation is "bound to unravel into something even more chaotic and catastrophic if action is not taken." His essay seeks to reconcile Israel's strategic needs with the Arab peace plan and suggests that this time in history, with the war in Iraq and regional fears over Iran's military ambitions, presents a unique opportunity to forge a peace agreement. Timing, as they say, is everything in politics, and it may be that the new American president, whether it's McCain or Obama, will suddenly find that he is the right man at the right time to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians together.