Obama is going to be active on the Israel-Palstinian issue again

Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post writes on her blog that Netanyahu and Obama are going to meet again in Washington and discuss the fact that Fatah and Hamas has supposedly fused and how this is going to result in demands on Israel to give up land in Jerusalem and the West bank. Prior to the meeting with Netanyahu, Obama will give a speech to the Muslims again where he praises the populist movements causing the Arab spring.

The Arab spring and the killing of Osama bin Laden have remade the situation around Israel. Amr Moussa, the prospective new president of Egypt, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish premier since 2003, have apparently said recently that Hamas does not do terror anymore. Hamas has killed more Israelis than Al-Qaeda has killed Americans, Glick says, and they still do not recognize Israel. It is also going to be interesting how Hamas' militia is going to fuse with Fatah's US-trained ditto. The Fatah militia was apparently so good there was at least a theoretical possibility that they could provide security for a Palestinian state. The unification sounds on scrutiny impossible at best.

But pressure is building on Israel not only from the US but also from the EU. However, what is going to happen in the Middle East depends a little on what exactly the Arab spring turns out to be. Egypt is apparently going to dump their peace agreement with Israel and the US want to endorse the Muslim Brotherhood. It is perhaps all and well that Obama is going to praise the Arab spring but from the reports I'm reading it is not clear whether or not the populist movements really are friendly towards the West. After all the movement were against Western supported dictators. We should also remind ourselves on the hostility shown towards Western journalists so far. Progress after the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia is also very slow.