Photo: Isranet

According to Times of Israel, the White House has confirmed that President Obama is gearing up for a trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan sometime within the next two months.

Although details have not yet been released, we know that Obama ironed out specifics with Netanyahu during their phone call on January 28th.

Obama’s trip will hopefully improve his partnership with Bibi, and resume peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Times of Israel: 

In recent days, Netanyahu has spoken often of a desire to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, and directly called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to join him at the negotiating table. On Tuesday, in a speech to the new Knesset members, he vowed to steward a “prudent” diplomatic process, speaking of seeking agreements but also of maintaining Israel’s capacity to effectively protect itself against security threats.

Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy departs from the conventional wisdom that the Israeli electorate has lurched to the right and that this paradigm shift has damaged a peaceful future for Israel. Singh writes that the paradigm has shifted, but the shift in the Israeli public is a result of a shift on the ground – not the other way around as the UN and EU would like to believe.

Analysts who fret that the Israeli election will diminish prospects for peace have confused cause and effect. Heightened security worries sparked by Iran and the upheaval in the Arab world, compounded by fading hopes for peace with the Palestinians after four years of backsliding in the peace process, have fueled the electoral shifts that will be manifest in the Jan. 22 results.

Jonathan Tobin writes that the Israeli public has elected hawkish governments for a very simple reason – the average Israeli no longer believes that peace is achievable with a Palestinian populace and leadership that doesn’t seem interested in it:

Rather it is due to the fact that the Israeli center as well as even many on what we used to call the Israeli left have given up on the Palestinians. They know that neither Fatah in the West Bank nor Hamas in Gaza will ever recognize Israel’s legitimacy no matter where its borders are drawn. So they have abandoned those parties that hold onto the illusion of peace in favor of those with a more realistic vision while those on the right are now embracing parties like Habeyit Hayehudi in order to hold Netanyahu’s feet to the fire and prevent him from making concessions that will neither entice the Palestinians to the negotiating table nor increase its popularity abroad.

Flag of Fatah

Khaled Abu Toameh, the Palestinian journalist who writes for the Jerusalem Post, has a great article on what the recent moves at the U.N. mean for the peace process and what strategy is motivating Palestinian action.

There has been no mention of the peace process or coexistence with Israel. The belligerent and defiant tone of Fatah officials sent the message that the Palestinians are now headed toward confrontation with Israel — not peace.

Seth Mandel, writing in Commentary, spells out the profound differences between what the Israeli public thinks a peace deal should look like and what European leaders think.

The EU may have offered all the clarity Israel needed here. No peace plan that would be acceptable to the Israeli people would be acceptable to the EU. That’s something for Netanyahu to keep in mind (though he probably doesn’t have to be reminded to) as he is told repeatedly by those looking to save Israel from itself to mollify the Europeans. He cannot.