Obama's Busy Arab and Israeli Calendar

President Barack Obama’s calendar is full of Arab and Israel meetings this season at the White House. The first visitor was King Abdullah II, who conveyed a unified Arab position with the plan discussed during a meeting of a number of Arab ministers of foreign affairs. In the coming weeks, there will be three visitors whose appointments will take place almost successively: President Hosni Mubarak, who refrained from visiting Washington during the last years of the George Bush administration ; Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heard the most beautiful promises from Washington; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is trying to change Obama’s position while at the same time giving the impression that he agrees with him.

As for the other players, they await the role of the U.S. without high expectations. It is not the Syrian president’s habit to visit Washington, whether it be in the days of the late President Hafez al-Assad, who met the elder Bush and Clinton in Europe, or in the days of President Bashar al-Assad, who disagreed with the younger Bush; nor does anyone know when President Michel Suleiman will visit the White House in his series of trips abroad; nor does anyone expect Khaled Mashal to be invited despite rising cries warning against the policy of ignoring Hamas; nor does anything suggest that the path of U.S.-Iranian talks will be short and easy so that we can see an Iranian president at the White House in the near future, even though Tehran has become a player in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and in spite of that fact Obama sees a connection between the crises of the region and talks about a comprehensive solution.

What the Jordanian King heard was what he anticipated: Obama is sticking to the two-state solution, and he considers the Arab Peace Initiative to have “constructive elements.” He is willing to listen to all parties, but not forever. To him, the minimum would be to back away from the precipice, the acceptable would be significant preliminary steps towards a solution and the ideal would be reconciliation. However, the U.S. president’s ideas have not yet formed into a plan. Moreover, the reconciliation problem is not with the Arabs. The problem is in Israel with Netanyahu, and with those who came before him. Israel talks of the numerous dangers it faces, the exception being its continual occupation of Arab land: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and demographics. It also disregards the danger which Gary Seek summarized by saying “the greatest danger to Israel is Israel.”

Naturally, Obama brings a touch of optimism to the pessimistic atmosphere of the region. But the question is what can he do with Netanyahu, and the issue bears some differences: the Bush administration pressured Olmert in vain to apply the two-state solution. The Obama administration will likewise pressure Netanyahu to accept the solution verbally, regardless of how its applied.

The options are limited: either reconciliation or wars and unrest.