Quo Vadis for Obama in the Middle East?

Repeating what I have said many times to friends and associates who care to listen, Barack Obama's biggest challenge - apart from resolving the economic situation in the US - lies in the Middle East. The Iranian question and others will never be resolved while Israel continues to illegally take land from the Palestinians. The US cannot realistically hope to find solutions by pretending that the Iranian problem can be resolved separately from the Palestian statehood problem. Furthermore, merely condemning the continued growth of settlements while continuing to transfer billions of dollars to the State of Israel on an annual basis - money that is used to show the middle finger to the rest of the world - brings nothing new to the equation. Even Bush stopped from time to time to condemn these illegal (according to International, not Israeli, law) settlements, but that is as far as it went.

Both Palestinians and Israelis deserve to have a secure home with internationally recognised and enforced borders, protected immediately by both Palestinian and Israeli law and, eventually, through mechanisms of international law.

Granted, the current standoff between Hamas and Mahmood Abbas's Fatwa does not make it easy. But that is a conflict that can be resolved if sufficient resources and international political will are invested into it.

One understands that in order to secure himself higher chances of a second term in office, Barack Obama has to take it easy on Israel, but his failure here will not set him too aside from his precedessors. That would be a real pity for a President and, arguably, leader of the world, who came onto the scene with so much hope and aura!