We are awaiting the visit on 4 June by US President Barack Obama to Egypt, where he will put forward America's ideas on solutions in the region. The coming period, which will extend beyond this date and certainly last until the end of the year, is dominated by a situation of waiting for what the US-Israeli differences over the approach to the region's major crisis will lead to. We should first acknowledge that there is something new in this divergence, and in the approach as well, which forces everyone to take it into consideration. This is a result of a change in priorities by Obama, beginning with the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis, to the Iranian nuclear issue and Iraq, and finally to Palestine. We have learned, if we want to simplify the divergence and the approach, that Washington, in view of its giving priority to confronting the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb, calls on Israel to move forward with the peace process with the Palestinians, based on the two-state solution. This is because such a move will gain the support of the Arab world in confronting the possible threat, or imposing sanctions on Iran, if negotiations fail. Obama is advocating a difficult step for the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, for the first time in decades. Netanyahu, who is energized by even more extremism in the Israeli political class, is advocating, instead of a two-state solution, vague formulas based on improving the socio-economic situation of Palestinians and the Palestinians' security capabilities, wagering on continued division among Hamas, Fatah and other organizations, on the pretext of seeing the Iranian threat take precedence over a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Another simplification is that Netanyahu gives no weight to the new US policy orientation, which requires removing the Palestine “card” from Iran's hand, in order to negotiate with it as part of Washington's policy of engaging in dialogue. The negotiation will be conducted from a different position of strength, one that can mobilize other Arab countries to Washington's side on this complex issue, which is interconnected with Tehran's expanding regional role. Netanyahu assigns no importance to Washington's need to support the perennial Arab demand of solving the Palestinian issue in order to confront Islamic extremism and Iranian expansion. Although Israeli commentators believe that the Jewish state is in a predicament, as a result of the policy option that the US administration has placed before Israel, the US president is facing a test of his ability to effect a radical change in the policy of Israel's current ruling class. The results might conflict with the wager by some people that the divergence between the two strategic allies will have practical consequences; Washington might require time before it can have an impact on the Israelis, even if arms deals or financial assistance are halted, as the administration of George Bush did at the beginning of the 1990s, when it used measures of this kind to drag the Jewish state to the Madrid Conference negotiation process. The overarching theme of the Obama administration's policies is one of “rebuilding America's leadership of the Middle East” via new approaches, which it is putting forward. It also has old approaches and tools, which have been used when rebuilding the new leadership fails, and if Israel cannot be prompted into accepting the priority of a two-state solution, halting settlements and ending the siege of Gaza. Here lies the danger of a waiting period, during which Washington's abilities to effect a radical change in the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict will be revealed. If this period stretches for long, the old tools are guaranteed to pass the time, which will erode any new approaches, and Israel always succeeds in exploiting such situations. One of these tools appeared when Netanyahu hurried to announce, as soon as his meeting with Obama ended, his readiness to negotiate, with no pre-conditions, with the Palestinians, and with Syria; this is part of trying to play off the negotiation tracks against each other, as has become common. Negotiations with Damascus might be a way out for the Israeli government, as they generate a positive echo for some in the White House. Another old tool is the escalation of Sunni-Shiite tension and strife, which Washington has been happy with in recent years. It ignited the strife in Iraq, and the fire was strong enough to spread elsewhere. We saw this with Hezbollah, which once again became involved in such strife in Lebanon with the commemoration of the 7 May 2008 events, even though the party claimed to be working against such division, as the party used rhetoric to mobilize the masses on the occasion of a coming electoral test.
