Obama's "terminally obtuse" Middle East policy full of holes

U.S.-Backed Palestinian Leader Has Credibility Problem by Howard Schneider// PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, 74, heads a fractured government and a fractured political party. His four-year term expired four months ago. Polls show that he lags in popularity behind the leader of the Islamist Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh. His handpicked prime minister, Salam Fayyad, trusted to manage billions of dollars in foreign aid, is reviled by some Palestinians as a U.S. proxy. Whatever peace initiative President Obama envisions for the region, it involves a gamble that Abbas can overcome a long list of liabilities, put Palestinian politics back into one piece and hold up his side of any bargain. Abbas is to meet Obama at the White House on Thursday.(Washington Post) ****One can only wonder IF Obama expects Fatah to honor any bargain.****
Muslim Nations Link Better Israel Ties to Peace - Khaled Yacoub Oweis// Muslim foreign ministers meeting in Damascus on Monday issued a statement saying: "We must not reward Israel for its crimes." The statement issued by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said: "Any progress on ties must be linked to how much the Israeli position represents a commitment to a just and comprehensive peace that guarantees the restoration of rights and occupied land." The OIC said the concept of "resistance" was distinct from terrorism. "Terrorism is a dangerous global phenomenon, but this does not mean that we should allow it to be used to confuse issues and describe resistance as terrorism," the statement said.(Reuters) ****"Our" terrorism isn't "terrorism."****
****U.S.State Department's "adviser" at variance with Obama/Hillary position (at least in a book before his appointment)*****
Dennis Ross: No Link between Iran, Mideast Peace by Yossi Melman// Dennis Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State's special adviser on Iran, opposes the Obama administration's concept of linkage in a new book, Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East, written with David Makovsky. Ross writes that efforts to advance dialogue with Iran should not be connected to the renewal of talks between Israel and the Palestinians. In the second chapter, entitled "Linkage: The Mother of All Myths," Ross writes: "Of all the policy myths that have kept us from making real progress in the Middle East, one stands out for its impact and longevity: the idea that if only the Palestinian conflict were solved, all other Middle East conflicts would melt away. This is the argument of 'linkage.'" (Ha'aretz)
No Common Ground by Jeffrey Goldberg //
In March, Muhammad Dahlan, a former chief of the PA's secret police organizations and once a tacit ally of the CIA, defended Fatah from the charge, made by Hamas, that it had previously recognized Israel's right to exist. Dahlan said: "For the 1,000th time, I want to reaffirm that we are not asking Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist. Rather we are asking Hamas not to do so, because Fatah never recognized Israel's right to exist." Dahlan's comment helps buttress the main argument of Benny Morris's new book, One State, Two States, which says that Arab rejectionism is so profound a force that only the terminally obtuse could believe that Palestinians will ever acquiesce to a state comprised solely of the West Bank and Gaza. Morris sees the culprit as the implacable fanaticism of Arab Islamists, who are unwilling to accept a Jewish national presence in what is thought of as Arab land, a position that hasn't changed since 1920. Subsequent events that seemingly contradict this - most notably the PLO's ostensible recognition of Israel in 1988 - have been staged for the benefit of gullible Westerners, Morris writes. (New York Times)