By Schmoel Yitzhak
Ever since Barack Obama took over as America's chief executive he has relentlessly pressured Israel to make concessions in the hope that his administration could be credited with forging a landmark Middle East peace pact.
Bill Clinton did likewise and fell heavily on his face. His wife is likely to do likewise.
The latest round of America's anti-Israel hostility began, unfortunately, with Obama's Cairo speech which, for all intents and purposes, signaled to the Arabs that Uncle Sam will do anything it can to court Islam short of moving the White House to Tehran.
The Chief Executive's overwhelming Muslim tilt betrayed many anti-Israeli moves too numerous to mention here. Suffice to say that one of the most egregios was Obama's impudent snub of Benjamin Netanyahu when Israel's leader made his first official visit to Washington.
Only after it appeared that Obama's Democratic colleagues faced humiliating defeat in the November elections did the two-faced president try to make nice to Bibi. But anyone who knows anything about the president's bi-polar style realized -- and many wrote as much -- that he would show his true colors after the election and return to his policy of abusing Israel.
Not surprisingly, this has happened -- in spades.
The bribe is a good example of Obama perfidy. America offers Israel a package of the latest in jet fighter-bombers and support in the United Nations for another freeze in "settlement" construction. The bribe is absurd on all counts:
1. There WAS a long-term Israeli settlement-building freeze designed to coerce the Palestinians back to the conference table.
2. The freeze went on and on and ON, ad nauseum, with absolutely no reciprocity from Mahmound Abbas.
3. Obama did nothing -- as in ABSOLUTELY NOTHING -- to reprimand the Arabs for their intransigence. Obama treated Abbas as if the PA leader was being the soul of cooperation.
4. The American election is concluded; the Democrats get whomped and the President -- not needing Jewish votes for a while -- resumes his Israel-spanking.
What has the Chief Executive accomplished by his bias in favor of Abbas?
He has encouraged the Palestinians to utter the most heinous comments while making such outrageous demands as to render any further peace parlay meaningless. And here's what I mean:
* ISRAEL AS A JEWISH STATE: The United States has recognized Israel as a Jewish state since the nation's inception in 1948. That was how the country was founded and why it exists. Yet at the recently-concluded Fatah Revolutionary Council in Ramallah, the Palestinians emphatically rejected the concept of Israel as a Jewish state.
This produced not a peep out of Obama; nor was there any mention of America reducing heavy financial support of Abbas, Inc. Not a peep about the possibility that such inflammatory talk could scuttle peace negotiations. Nothing. Everyone who's anyone in American government knows that Israel never -- ever -- would relinquish its birthright as the Jewish state. Yet the PA blithely says no to Israel as Jewish and expects Bibi to bow to such a ridiculous assertion.
"It's clear," says one Israeli official, "that their refusal to recognize the Jewish state's legitimacy is the true obstacle to peace and reconciliation."
But there's more to it than that.
The Fatah Revolutionary Council did not stop there. It rejected the idea of land swaps as part of a permanent peace pact and, furthermore, once again tread on thin ice by bringing up another negotiating no-no. To wit:
* RETURN OF REFUGEES: Arab propagandists know full well that any refugee-return campaign is an instant deal-breaker. It's not only out of the question, it's out of the realm of possibility because that -- as much as any Palestinian plank -- would ensure the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Obama knows this. His Secretary of State knows it and his policy-makers know it.
That said, Obama should quickly denounce the Revolutionary Council in no uncertain terms. Instead he merely encourages the Palestinians by his taciturn reaction which the Arabs interpret as tacit approval.
* HOSTILE BEHAVIOR: The Arabs want peace? Who's kidding whom? Palestinians kids are taught almost from birth to hate Israel. The instruction intensifies in school, on television via the newspapers. You can hear it in the dialogue and comments emanating from Ramallah.
Israel is referred to as the "so-called Jewish state." Israelis who live in the West Bank are characterized as "illegal settler gangs." Peaceful words are as rare as icebergs in Nablus.
Why then doesn't Uncle Sam's commander-in-chief recognize that ongoing hostility so pervasive throughout the PA, an organization that only is "moderate" relative to the Hamas leaders in Gaza?
Doesn't Hilary Rodham Clinton understand that -- based on statements made by the Revolutionary Council -- that a return to the conference table would be a waste of everybody's time.
Better still, how about Obama and Clinton redirecting their focus away from another settlement freeze while zeroing in on the relentless, public hostility maintained by the Arabs toward America's foremost ally in the Middle East?
That would make sense except that the president and his secretary of state seem hellbent on ignoring the endless venom spewed by the PA and Abbas' flunkies on the Revolutionary Council.
And as long as Obama-Clinton retain that astigmatic look, the Arabs will increase their intransigence, braking any peace possibilities for decades.
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