“The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam"

The words of President Barack Obama in an April 6^th speech in secular (but Muslim) Turkey before their legislature. The President will follow that address with a message to the Muslim world to be delivered in Egypt on June 4^th. A notoriously repressive nation, Egypt is hardly a platform for democracy, but it is a large Arab country – not blessed with oil – that has for decades been a hotbed for fundamentalist recruitment. Obama walks a tightrope between our solid relationship with our most consistent ally in the region, Israel, and the Islamic world that seems torn between anti-American militancy and being left alone to live their lives in peace. Scarce resources in a melted world don’t help matters.

We have been committed to a separate Palestinian state for some time, but with a new hardliner coalition in Israel, the road to a peaceful partition is anything but clear and obvious. Recent overtures from radical Hamas leaders provide a ray of hope for the region (including backing off of their completely unacceptable use of rockets to bombard Israeli targets), but with escalations between radical Islamists and incumbent governments on the increase – look at the devastation in Pakistan’s Swat region as government forces pound Taliban troops resulting in heavy civilian casualties – regional peace is a fragile sapling that is not finding solid roots. Hamas has always been committed to the destruction of Israel (even though that position may be moderating), and the new Likud coalition seems equally dedicated to rejecting any recognition of any Palestinian government that would include Hamas.

The day after his address from Egypt, the President is pointedly making a pilgrimage to visit the ruins of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Dresden, Germany to honor the Jews who were slaughtered there in World War II – a clear “balancing” gesture to Israelis who fear that the United States may lessen their support for the Jewish state in order to relieve some of the military pressure America is experiencing in Iraq, but more importantly, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They worry that in order to enlist support from countries like Saudi Arabia to help the U.S. back-channel to the Islamist militants, notably the Taliban, America might be selling Israel down the river.

So as President Obama presses for a separate Palestinian state, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud’s leader) and its hardline foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman (from the ultra-orthodox Yisrael Beiteinu party) have made it clear that: 1. “Peace will not come without security.” and 2. “Palestinians must recognize Israel as the Jewish state.” Sounds pretty simple and reasonable when you put it that way, but these little phrases might actually put American foreign policy on a collision course with Israel’s most basic requirements.

On May 7^th, Newsweek’s Michael Hirsch explained what those phrases really signify: “Netanyahu … hammered home to Obama during their first visit last July [2008], when the then-senator from Illinois visited as a presidential candidate: without addressing Iran's attempted rise as a nuclear-powered regional hegemon, there can be no security in any other area—especially the Palestinian conflict… [And] reading between the lines[, the 2^nd requirement] almost certainly means that Netanyahu will not recognize any peace agreement that hands over the West Bank to the Palestinians as long as Hamas continues to wield the political power it does in the territories and refuses to recognize Israel (a position that Hamas leaders reiterated this week). It also means that, if talks do begin again, an issue that once was deemed ‘final status’—the right of Palestinians to return to Israel—is off the table.”

In short, the President’s desire to move the American commitment to a Palestinian state forward requires the building of that ultimately seemingly impossible infrastructure project – building a bridge between two completely irreconcilable and inconsistent positions. As Arab positions modify, Israel’s position seems to harden, and vice versa. Obama is open to dialog with Iran, and Israel is beyond suspicious of any such rapprochement.

The flashpoints are obvious, the risks deadly, and the consequences from a misstep threaten us all. I suspect that even with the biggest financial calamity this country has seen since The Great Depression as his main focus, Mr. Obama cannot give such global security issues anything but his best efforts as well. Mrs. Clinton’s dance card seems to be pretty full as well. The June 4^th speech will be seminal.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.