The one advantage Israel has right now is how transparent Obama has turned out to be. At least knowing what he is really after is a step towards being able to fight back.

For instance, what could be the possible motivation for a 3 month retroactive freeze that ends in just over a month, and has no alleged continuation, and certainly won't bring the Pals back to the table?

Since there is really only 1 item on the table that is going to be discussed, and there is only 1 Obama threat that stands out from all the others, clearly they are probably linked.

The one item up for discussion right now is that Obama wants to pin down and pressure Bibi to deliver the maximalist borders that he will give away. Obama wants maps, Obama wants lines, and Obama wants Jerusalem (and the Jordan Valley).

Once Obama has that, no further negotiations are needed.

He will then begin working in the UN on behalf of the Palestinians to declare a state based on those borders in exactly 1 year 1 month and 1 week. The date his self-imposed restriction on vetoing a Palestinian state will expire.

(Coincidentally, think of that date as a 2011 X-mas present which is timed with the ending of Al-Hijra/Muharram, the Islamic sacred month when Mohammad went from Mecca to Medina).

(And Chanukah too).

That's it. It's that simple and that straightforward.

Now along the way, and for the same money, he can also cause Bibi a coalition crisis.

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Related rumors and anonymous sources:

Anonymous sources in Prime Ministers office (sorry, nothing online) have said that Israel was to get the extra 20 F-35s anyway (but it is not clear who is to be paying for them, Israeli officials believes Israel will be), also that Obama demanded that Bibi dump Lieberman for Tzippi.

Where Pollard fits into this (part of the game, or an actual demand by Bibi) is still anyone's guess.

And on a final note, one explanation given regarding why the letter with Obama's threats is taking so long to arrive is that Bibi claims to have received certain promises from Obama on Jerusalem. Getting that in writing about ("East") Jerusalem (as it being shoveled to us) would be a 180 degree change in US policy. Don't hold your breath expecting to see in writing what we were told last week.

What do the Palestinians want?

It's fair question. After all, if and when we negotiate with them (and not with the Obama administration) it would be good to know what it is they really want and see as their endgame.

The Israel Project ran a comprehensive poll that tried to understand exactly what they want.

Some of the answers were seemingly contradictory (at first), while most answers were quite clear and consistent. A statement left open and undefined ("peace") received a positive answer, but when the actual terms of what "peace" included was defined (see last graph on this post), it was then overwhelmingly rejected.

To begin with, most Palestinians want to live under Sharia law.



Surprising at first, most Palestinians want a 2 state solution.



But not so surprising when asked to explain that position.

Most Palestinians see a 2-state solution as a stepping stone to replacing Israel with one Palestinian state.



To achieve that 1 state of Palestine solution, most Palestinians approve the use of violence against Israel.



Most Palestinians do not accept the existence of a Jewish state and believe it must be actively destroyed.



And finally, most Palestinians do not expect there to be a Jewish state in 25 years.





In short, the Palestinian position seems to be that Israel should be destroyed and replaced with a single Palestinian state, and the means to do so should be through both negotiations and violence.


Now here is the kicker. When "peace" was defined with the maximalist (peace) terms Israel already offered, and terms that Israel would/could never offer more than, and in fact, presumably the minimum that Obama is trying to get Israel to agree to now (in his secret plan), "peace", now defined, was overwhelmingly rejected.



Ultimately, what this means is that "Palestinian" society is not looking for an end to the conflict or for peace, but rather sees negotiations as another means to destroy Israel.

When Palestinian leaders speak of peace and negotiations, they (and their leaders) apparently believe they are talking about weapons for destroying Israel. They actually believe that they will ultimately succeed in destroying Israel.

Food for thought.

No longer does just Israel exclusively share that special relationship with the US.

“This figure underscores the strong determination of the American people and this administration to stand with our Palestinian friends even during difficult economic times,” declared US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in announcing the aid, which was taken from the $200 million the Obama administration plans to allocate to the PA in 2011."

Under the Obama regime, the "Palestinians" have been upgraded to "friends" of the US. That kind of makes a mockery out of it when they say the same about Israel.

If the US loses Iraq and Afghanistan there won’t be peace in Israel or "Palestine".

Conventional wisdom in the Obama administration is that somehow peace between Israel and local Arabs is the lynchpin for peace and success in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some Obama officials have gone so far as to imply (if not say outright) that US soldiers are dying because of Israel.

The problem is that once again the Obama administration has the situation completely backwards.

Peace in the Holy Land will only be possible once there is peace and democracy in the rest of the Middle East.

The US troubles in Iraq stem from Iran and other Islamic fundamentalists. And Afghanistan? That’s been a problem ever since the Russians got there, if not before.

And let's not get started on Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon.

And none of them were caused by the problems of the Holy Land. They were caused by fundamentalist Islam and their individual dictatorial forms of government (and the colonial powers that created the artificial Arab states in the Middle East).

And the solution to their problem has nothing to do with the Middle East.

But the opposite is true.

If the US is unable to establish, implement and maintain a strong and stable democracy in these two countries which are lynchpins in US Middle East policy, and if the US can't bring Iran back into the cradle of civilized countries, then the US will have no credibility in being able to implement a solution to the Israel-Arab war either.

As Sharansky pointed out, you can only make a real lasting peace with a stable democracy. Egypt is soon going to go over the Islamic edge, and the Kingdom of Jordan is probably not long for this world either. And meanwhile, Iran will be destabilizing everything.

The PA and Hamastan have both long thrown out their fictional covers as a democracy.

Any peace treaty with them isn’t worth the paper its written on, as there is no other incentive for them to keep the peace (Egypt at least has US military aid to prop up the government).

It's US policy and failure that is preventing peace in the Middle East.

Let the US start introducing freedom and democracy into these hard-line belligerent countries and peace will naturally fall into place everywhere else.

By tomorrow we should know the results of the US elections. Most reports indicate the Republicans will have won by a landfall.

But that will only mean that half the battle has been won.

With fewer options on his table, the Obama is likely to shift His focus on Israel (or Palestine for him).

That means that Bibi and Israel will be coming under more pressure than ever.

But with better allies in Congress and the Senate, perhaps Bibi will be able to stand strong and ride out the Obama storm.

There is a lot of talk that within a year the “Palestinians” will unilaterally declare a state (again, Arafat already did that once in 1988 at the UN). They will claim the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. What’s not clear if this third Palestinian state (1. Jordan in Mandatory Palestine, 2. Hamastan in Gaza, and 3. Fatahland in Judea and Samaria) will have any close political connection to the other Palestinian states.

I just heard that Bibi said he will grant them 60% of Judea and Samaria if they make their declaration.

But that’s a ridiculous offer. They don’t care what Bibi offers, as they are planning on declaring a state regardless and fully expect the UN to agree with their declarations and demarcations – and they are certainly are not declaring a state of peace with Israel.

And that is one of the two important points that need to be pointed out.

This newest state of Palestine will officially be created in a (permanent) state of war and conflict with Israel.

They are not interested in a peace treaty or arrangement with Israel. If they were, they’d have been able to get what they wanted at the negotiating table at any time.

The other important point to notice is that for all the talk of Dayton’s army.

This army’s loyalty to Fatahland actually remains a complete unknown. The only force preventing Hamas’s assumption of power in “Palestinian” Judea and Samaria is the IDF.

One question will be, what will our government do with our army once they declare their state?

The other will be, does Fatahland actually plan to declare a state knowing that they will completely lose political power to Hamas within a few months of the declaration?

It might be easy to say yes. But I am sure that the more politically astute among them know that declaring a state, and Israel pulling back even a little means the end of Fatahland.

Is the threat to unilaterally declare a state just a bluff?

Fatahland has everything to lose by declaring one.