The first foreboding came during President Obama’s inaugural address when he announced to the Muslim world, “…we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect…we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”  Who can quarrel with such a goal? But with the benefit of 15 months of hindsight, those words were an early warning signal to Israel the sole steadfast American ally in the region surrounded by Muslim nations essentially sworn to its destruction.

There was also, of course, the much heralded Cairo speech which was loaded with good-sounding, even pseudo-historic, platitudinous remarks but which lacked the one statement that mattered…that both sides agree to enter peace talks, the publically avowed purpose of which would be to reach a settlement that would end the Israel-Palestinian dispute once and for all, a settlement that would mean no new demands directed by one party against the other.

Israel has been paraded, often reluctantly, to center stage by a succession of American Administrations to perform much like a dancing bear for a variety of Presidents who wanted to add “peacemaker” to their legacy and who demanded of Israel a succession of concessions each of which was called a “confidence building measure” to show the Arab nations Israel’s good faith intentions.

Since its inception as a Jewish state in 1948, the only one by the way, effectively created by the United Nations (many of the remainder of which being creations of British map drawing after World War I), Israel has been the only true democracy and a steadfast ally of the United States.  It has enjoyed the support, in varying degrees, of American governments from Truman through Bush, including even Jimmy Carter while he was president.

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I was invited to speak on 21st century missile threats and defenses at the recent 7th annual Jerusalem Conference, 2010, held at the Regency Hotel on Mt. Scopus, in the city of David, but I was pleased as well to hear a wide variety of experts (speeches are delivered in English and Hebrew with convenient wireless earphone translation headsets).

This gathering is rooted in historic Zionism, the meaning of the land of Israel, and the spiritual meaning of Jerusalem. Many Israeli statesman and American political leaders come to address current security crises, as well as existential questions ever-present for the Jewish state still facing war.

The Palestinian Front

On the Palestinian front, many now believe that the idea of a small PLO state within the 1967 borders, to include Gaza, major parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, has lost its appeal within Araby.

Radical Islamism, unrealistic expectations, and daily incitement against Israel in mosques, the media, and madrassas, have all added up to another era of Palestinian intransigence and irredentism.

Unfortunately, the drive for Palestinian independence has not been equated with responsible state building leading to the kind of sovereignty that would help the Palestinian people themselves.

Palestinians universally wish to cast Israel off their shoulders, but this does not mean they support a fair division of land, or a desire to live in peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state in the middle east.

Israeli journalist and commentator Ehud Ya’ari stated that the Palestinians have now fully collapsed into the unwilling arms of the Israelis, and that Israel must urgently solve the seemingly unsolvable.

Israel is today faced with a reverse annexation: It is the Palestinians who have decided to annex Israel, because Israel did not annex them first.

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