Buried deep in an AP story about Israel demanding a precautionary presence in part of the West Bank in any agreement reached with the Palestinians, was a little news nugget capable of torpedoing Israel’s relationship with the United States.
According to the Associated Press story, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has proposed the Obama administration negotiate the final borders of a Palestinian state with Israel on the Palestinian’s behalf.
“Such a proxy arrangement could provide a way around the current deadlock over reviving Israeli-Palestinian talks, which broke off more than a year ago,” the story notes. “As an alternative, U.S. officials could replace Palestinian negotiators in border talks with Israel, said an Abbas aide.”
This tells me the Palestinians are pretty sure whose side the United States President is on — so much so that they’re willing to let him do their bargaining on their country’s final borders for them.
Abbas evidently made the proposal in recent meetings with Egyptian officials who passed the idea along to Washington, the story said. It was not clear how the Americans reacted, according to the story.
I find chilling the fact the Palestinian officials are so confident of Barack Obama’s advocacy.
Such an arrangement would seem, by it’s nature, to pit Israel against the United States.
It would put Israel in the position of risking its historically close alliance with the U.S. if it failed to agree to some proposal the U.S. put forward on the Palestinians’ behalf.
I can’t see that working out well for Israel on any level.
Some of us may have underestimated Abbas’ cunning. What a clever way to try to undermine the main international relationship helping ensure the Jewish state’s survival.
If the United States were to agree to such an arrangement, Israeli officials would be in the position of having either to accept the idea, which would jeopardize the relationship between the two longtime allies, or reject it, and I’m not sure how they diplomatically do that.
On the other hand, were the U.S. to accept such a suggestion — to act on behalf of the Palestinians — it may not matter, anyway, because all pretense of neutrality will have flown out the window.

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