While the US “Protocol President” Barack Obama was busy with the royal welcome prepared for him in London and with offering congratulations to the newlywed couple, William and Kate, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed as if he was the actual President of the United States, as he spoke before Congress amidst standing ovations by its members every time he defied with the stances he was taking and the terms he was using the suggestion put forward to him by Obama two days ago, concerning the necessity of launching any kind of negotiations with the Palestinians based on the frame of reference of the 1967 borders. And although the theater play in Congress was ridiculous and plainly obvious in terms of direction and acting, its main storyline based on Republican “spite” towards the Democratic President, Netanyahu and his audience of House Representatives and Senators based their performance on a well-known factor in US politics: the fact that the influence of Jewish pressure groups strongly increases with the nearing of the electoral season and the need for votes. Indeed, Obama's suggestion of adopting the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations did not in effect hold anything new, because it was coupled with the inevitability of carrying out land-swaps in agreement between the two sides. In other words, the suggestion included what Israel had always sought after in terms of the necessity for the international community to accept the legitimacy of settlement-building in exchange for a few “concessions” of pure form here and there, after the US President had quickly backtracked at the end of last year on waging a confrontation against Israel on the issue of the settlements. Obama's suggestion also completely ignores the issue of the right of return of refugees, while stressing the Jewish identity of the State of Israel. Yet the mere mention of the 1967 frame of reference caused the uproar of Israelis and their enthusiastic supporters in the US, representing an opportunity for Netanyahu to start his electoral battle in Israel itself, where he knows that his success at keeping his position of Prime Minister is contingent on the extent of his stringency with the Palestinians and all of the Arabs, as well as on his ability to pander to extremists. The common denominator between Obama's speech before AIPAC and that of Netanyahu before Congress was that of exerting pressure on the Palestinians to deter them from making the attempt that is keeping them both awake at night: that of demanding recognition for the Palestinian state at the Security Council next September, and then – in view of the expected US veto – at the United Nations General Assembly. The only difference is that Obama tried to gain the approval of the Palestinians with a general slogan he knows perfectly well to be unrealistic given the current balance of power and the massive scale of the settlement-building campaign that has been going on for half a century. Netanyahu, on the other hand, preferred to escalate his stances to their furthest extent, addressing the Israeli interior before the Americans, and sending messages in every direction, and in particular in that of the Arab Peace Initiative, of which he announced the death by rejecting the fundamental principle upon which it is based: the principle of land for peace. But if Netanyahu can defy Obama on his home court by relying on the support of the Jewish lobby, why can President Mahmoud Abbas not in turn say no to Israel's obstinate stances and to the US's favoritism by relying on the support of the international community? Of course he can, but he needs to preserve two achievements he has earned, namely: first, the national reconciliation and the unity of the Palestinian stance on the peace process and in the face of the enormous pressures the Palestinians have been subjected to politically and even militarily; and second, the ever-increasing international support that believes in the legitimacy and peacefulness of Palestinian demands. Indeed, if he succeeds at this, both the Fatah and Hamas movements can together launch the “Third Intifada” – a diplomatic and international intifada this time.
