After I criticized Obama’s Cairo speech, my brother, filmmaker Lawrence Konner, challenged me to write the speech I would like to have heard:

“Fellow citizens of the world, Assalaamu alaykum—Peace be upon you.

“As you may know, I did not learn that greeting and blessing on the plane on the way here. I learned it as an American child, in a Muslim school, in the world’s largest Islamic nation, and I offer it with all my heart.

“But although I am on the world stage, speaking from another great and ancient Muslim land, I speak as the representative of the people of the United States. In a sense, that people also represents the world, since we come from every corner of it. In fact, we include among us millions of Muslims, who have made great contributions throughout our history. If you doubt the power of American democracy, or the reality of the American dream, ask them.

“We recently elected our first Muslim congressman; long in coming, but a great step forward. He was sworn into office on a copy of the Qur’an that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson, one of our greatest founders. For more than two centuries, the hearts and minds of our people have been open to the world, including the Islamic world.

“On September 11, 2001, we were attacked on our own soil for the first time since Jefferson’s day, and in one blow we lost three thousand dead, along with some of our innocence. We were reminded that there is evil in the world, and that it often targets the United States. Yet we did not falter.

“The terrorists who attacked us came from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but our friendships with both countries strengthened. The attackers claimed to be acting in the holy name of Islam, but we repudiated that claim; my predecessor gave his first major speech about the attack from the pulpit of a great mosque in Washington. American Muslims reacted to the attack as Americans—with horror, with sadness, and above all with loyalty, and the feared backlash against them never came.

“We fought two wars in response to this and other attacks; one I supported, one I did not. But both have resulted in the liberation of moderate, decent Muslims from the grip of extremism and tyranny. As a decade before in Bosnia, American blood and treasure was spent to defend Muslims from oppression. Why?

“Because we understood from the outset that this was not a clash of civilizations but a battle between all civilization and its enemies. Historically, Islam stands proud among the world’s civilizations, including our much younger one in America.

“But we too are proud. We led the world in replacing monarchy with democracy. We lagged in the abolition of slavery, but we did it at tremendous cost, and the descendants of slaves are now taking their rightful place. We played a large part in defeating Fascism, and the largest part in defeating Communism. Have we made mistakes? Of course we have, and more than one or two. We have not been a beacon of democracy at every moment in every place, but I intend for us to be that beacon going forward.

“Make no mistake about me. I have darker skin and a stranger name than my predecessors, but I understand as they did that my first responsibility is to protect the people of the United States. I will do that with all my heart and all my skill. As Commander in Chief of the armed forces of my country, you will find me no less resolute than those who have gone before me.

“But I also have larger ears than some of them, and I use them to listen. I want to know what you are saying in Cairo, what others are saying in Beijing, Djakarta, Moscow, Paris, Rio de Janiero, and yes, in Tehran, Pyongyang and Caracas too. But in the last analysis I must and will stand for America; that is my job and my sacred oath.

“We want to walk with you on the path to democracy. We are not quite there ourselves, but no one is ahead of us, and many are behind. Let me be clear. Democracy does not just mean elections. Elections can be fraudulent, but whoever counts ballots, they are not fair unless certain other conditions of democracy are met.

“There must be absolute protection for minorities. There must be a judicial system free of bias and corruption. Women must be full and equal participants in social and political life. And basic freedoms must prevail: freedom of speech, of the press and other media, of assembly, and of religion. To ask the people of the United States to welcome another nation as a democracy just because it has held elections is to fail to understand our history and the price we have paid in moving toward these goals.

“We want to help you achieve them too, and we understand that without economic opportunity they are hard to grasp. We will help you to create that opportunity, fighting poverty and disease throughout the world. Microloans and vaccinations are greater weapons than guns, including ours, or speeches, including mine. A little girl leaning over a notebook in a safe and open school has a mind that can change the world.

“Let me turn now to a subject that is on our minds now: the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Some of you believe we must solve this first and that all other problems will be easy to solve thereafter. I reject that reasoning.

“Resolving this conflict will have no bearing on the belligerency of North Korea, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the tension between India and Pakistan, the genocide in Darfur, or the collapsing states elsewhere in Africa. It will not contain the imperial ambitions of Iran and its terrorist surrogates, nor will it make the historic friction between Shi’a and Sunni disappear. It will not curb the spread of nuclear arms.

“I am here to tell you that I recognize the suffering of the Palestinian people. I recognize the need for Israel to stop expanding settlements and to loosen travel restrictions in what will some day be a Palestinian state. But I need for you to acknowledge some things as well.

“I need you to recognize that Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people, to which they have returned after millennial, unparalleled suffering in exile. I need to hear you say that Jews, who number about one for every hundred Muslims worldwide, have a right to one safe, secure homeland of their own. I need to know that you have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

“From my first day in office, I have taken stronger steps than my predecessors to address this conflict, and I will not relax until it is resolved. But I need your help, and that means more than just acceptance of a Jewish state in Israel and a future state of Palestine.

“It requires you to move forward toward true democracy in all your nations, not overnight, but with steady and sure steps. Walk with us, and we will walk with you.

“Assalaamu alaykum—May peace be upon you, upon the people of the United States, and upon all who long for and work toward peace in this wide, varied, and often dangerous world. Thank you.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is Milan Kundera’s haunting novel of love and politics set in the Czechoslovakia of 1968—“The Prague Spring”—and of the Soviet crackdown that ended them. It would have been a beautiful book under any name, but for me the title too has been permanently haunting over the decades since I read it.

It refers to the fact that life is not a controlled experiment; we cannot go back to the point at which we have made a momentous choice and try the alternative—the road less or more traveled by, for instance—to see how things might have turned out differently, to know whether we made the “right” choice. In fact, we cannot even know whether it made any difference at all. That is the unbearable lightness of being.

It’s been on my mind lately in relation to Obama’s Cairo speech. Pundits on the left have been giving him credit for a pro-Western election result in Lebanon, a good showing for similar forces in Iran, and a speech by the Israeli prime minister that followed the word “Palestinian” with the word “state” for the first time in that politician’s life. So, they say, President Obama’s open-armed diplomacy in Cairo made the good guys bold and trusting and made the bad guy (Netanyahu) knuckle under.

I’ve also been thinking about Winston Churchill, since a selection from his speeches throughout his career was one of the books on a shelf in the house in Maine where I was a guest last weekend. Churchill always cared passionately about the poor, although his conservatism limited his imagination in helping them. But in the foreign policy arena, his firmness of purpose saved not only Britain but Europe and perhaps the world from unspeakable tyranny. From 1933 onwards, Churchill stood alone in understanding and declaring again and again what Adolf Hitler was up to.

The response in Parliament ranged from disinterest to contempt. Churchill was a dinosaur, a relic from a militaristic, imperial past, a world of “good” and “evil” gone forever, and he couldn’t grasp how the world had changed. But in 1939 then-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from a meeting with Hitler waving a piece of paper and crying, “Peace in our time!” Then Hitler began doing what Churchill (and Hitler himself) had said he would do, and the British people turned to Churchill to lead. 

We will never know what would have happened if Obama had been more proud and resolute in Cairo, but we know what is happening now. The pro-Western election in Lebanon is most likely a pendulum swing; it has happened before and will probably happen again. Iran, at this writing, is in what may turn out to be a healthy turmoil, but if it ends in a Tienanmen Square-like—or for that matter Prague-like—crackdown, the result could be another decade or two of mullah oligarchy and a huge nuclear-armed rogue state. In fact, under Obama, a nuclear-armed Iran seems likely either way.

As for Netanyahu, the gesture was important but the politics have not changed much. Bibi, as he’s affectionately (or sometimes not so affectionately) known in Israel is a wily politician who will do whatever he has to to keep his coalition squarely at his right shoulder and Obama off his back. His post-Cairo “concession” speech made it clear that he would accept only a completely de-fanged Palestinian state and one that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state before negotiations begin. This is code for no right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to the Jewish side of the border. Meanwhile, of course, “normal” growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank continues.

Meanwhile, too, Obama is being buzzed on his left flank by the ridiculous Jimmy Carter, who has been prancing around Gaza bemoaning the destruction there while cozying up to the very Hamas operatives who systematically brought it down on their own long-suffering people. Carter is no stranger to such kowtowing; he did it in Communist Romania, Poland, and Korea, among other sleazy and brutal dictatorships, pursuing a policy of appeasement during his presidency and undermining American foreign policy ever since, regardless of which party held the White House.

And so it was not of course Jimmy Carter who helped bring the Berlin Wall down and revive the Prague Spring; it was Ronald Reagan, whose friendliness was poured over everything like molasses but whose absolutely implacable resoluteness—and insistence on calling evil evil—carried the day. President Obama needs to decide which of these two predecessors’ books he will keep at his bedside, and from which he will take his leaf. Will he be remembered as a laughable failure and appeaser or a respected if flawed man who helped change history? Carter or Reagan? Chamberlain or Churchill?

We will see, and we will never know for sure what worked and what failed—“the unbearable lightness of being” again, applied on the world stage. But if history is any guide, bowing and scraping to dictators and opening your arms to them will not likely protect you or take you very far.

I generally don’t put much stock in dreams (I mean the asleep kind) and I would hate to be one of those bores who drone on about their own. But last night I was being chased through the halls and stairways of a stately theology school by an old guy in an army jacket with a long-range rifle. Pausing to adjust the sights, he took aim at me, and I ran with him never far behind. I awoke before I was shot, but it was not a sweet dream.

It wasn’t hard to figure out that, whatever else is wrong with my psyche, this had to do with what Freud used to call “the residue of the day,” because one of the last things I did before falling asleep was watch the news about James Von Brunn, the 88-year-old who murdered a guard and wounded another man in the Holocaust Museum yesterday.

Von Brunn, fortunately also severely wounded by other guards near their dying colleague, was a lifelong white supremacist whose writings in book form and on the internet have spewed hate against Jews and African-Americans for decades. In 1981 he used a sawed-off shotgun to try to take Paul Volcker and other Federal Reserve Board members hostage, planning to force them to admit on television that the Fed is run by a Jewish international conspiracy.

He served six years in prison, and according to an FBI man spying on his group, he was treated as a former prisoner of war and a hero, having risked and sacrificed for the defense of the white race. In this, his last hurrah, he entered the Holocaust Museum in

Washington with the help of a security guard named Stephen Tyrone Johns, whom he promptly shot in cold blood. Johns, an African-American father who was said to have had a heart as big as his large body, died on the way to the hospital.

Von Brunn, at this writing, survives in the same hospital; A note found in his car yesterday said, “The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews.” If he has any fleeting moments of consciousness, he probably uses them to think contemptuous thoughts about any African-Americans or Jews who may be trying to save his life. And his colleagues—of whom, FBI spies and other experts assure us, there are many—must consider him a greater hero than ever. Think he’s just a rogue loner? Think again. The FBI says there are thousands of potentially violent white supremacists in the network, and that they work in groups of three to limit infiltration.

There may be a trend. Last month a Jewish student at Wesleyan was killed, and the suspect who eventually surrendered had kept an anti-Semitic diary. Also very recently, police foiled an alleged Muslim terrorist plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx. Three Pittsburgh police officers were allegedly shot and killed by a man with vicious racist and anti-Semitic views. And the man alleged to have shot two soldiers, one of whom died, was an American convert to Islam who had done internet research on Jewish organizations and was apparently armed and prepared for other actions.

No doubt some of these alleged perpetrators are not white enough to become heroes to Mr. Von Brunn’s comrades, but others are, and still others are going to follow in his footsteps, holding the banner of hatred high.

James Von Brunn, you must be proud. At the ripe age of eighty-eight, you showed your manhood one more time. You walked into the heart of the beast, the museum that perpetrates all those so-called-Holocaust lies. You murdered a man with a warm heart and a great sense of humor and so orphaned at least one child. An African-American man. That’ll show those Jews. They’ve always been the first to defend the rights of blacks. What are they but almost-Africans pretending to be white?

And you murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns in a way that would make your Nazi heroes proud too–mercilessly, after gaining his confidence, pretending to be something you were not, then leveling your rifle at his chest and pulling the trigger before he could even know what was going on, much less reach for his gun. What a man you are, white hair, wrinkles, wattles and all!

It’s one of those times when I wish I believed in a hereafter, because there, you would get your reward, and it would not much resemble the one you expect.

A couple of months ago President Obama was heavily (and in my view rightly) criticized for bowing the the Saudi king until his upper body was almost parallel to the ground. American presidents just don’t do that, and when he did he shamed us all. I would say the same if it were the Emperor of Japan or the Queen of England–to whom he did give a perfunctory (and appropriate) hint of a bow.

A couple of weeks later he famously overdid his handshake with Venezuelan strongman and inveterate America-hater Hugo Chavez, giving a warm version of the ‘brother’ handshake–regular clasp, then high-up clasp, complete with a huge Obama grin and a nice pat on the dictator’s shoulder, as if to say, Well done, Hugo–shaming us all again. The photos were on the Venezuelan government website within minutes, and flashed all over Latin America, legitimizing Chavez beyond his dreams.

Should he not have bowed at all to the Saudi king? No, he should have delivered the same perfunctory bow he gave Queen Elizabeth. Should he not have shaken hands with dictator Chavez? Maybe not at all, but certainly he could have showed some reluctance, leaned back, shaken once briefly and politely, preferably without a smile. These are the bows that say, I respect you and your traditions, but Americans don’t do bows; the handshakes that say, This is required protocol, but it’s no photo-op and it’s all you’ll get from me.

This stuff matters, and astoundingly President Obama doesn’t understand why and how. Did he go through two years of campaigning without learning how to avoid photo-ops sought by bad guys who could hurt him? No. Did he forget that lesson after moving into the White House? Apparently. He also apparently has the idea that you can strengthen America by going around Europe apologizing, and by declassifying documents that were classified for a reason. Not to mention relentlessly attacking and humiliating his predecessor, also an elected (twice) president of the United States, not as a campaigner but as that man’s successor. So much for the gracious bipartisanship that he promised for two years.

This morning he bowed far too low again, figuratively this time, in a 37-minute speech in Cairo designed to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world. It was a typical Obama speech–brilliantly crafted, viewing the world from an Olympian moral height, imbued with the highest ideals, demonstrating his legendary intelligence and multicultural knowledge, not from books but from his own life.

There was just one problem, the same as the problem with the bow and the handshake; he went too far.

It’s fine to open a friendly hand to the “other” in this nasty world, trying to start–or in this case to re-start–a relationship. It’s quite another thing to bow. Obama just does not seem to know how to project the strength and dignity of an American president. Think of Washington, Lincoln, either Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or Kennedy, and you’ll see what I mean. Think even of Ronald Reagan–in my opinion, not in their league. Still: friendly? –invariably; weak? –never.

Obama’s defense of America’s role in the world was closer to apology than pride, and he certainly did not say the strong things that would explain fully what America has meant. True, he did talk about the long history of Muslims who have sought freedom and prosperity in America, but he did nothing to counter the notion that America has marched through the world throwing its weight around, an extension of the colonial powers of old.

The speech addressed terrorism, but not strongly enough; it resolutely refused to use the word. It defended women’s rights, but not intently enough; it spoke of “free” elections that bring an end to freedom, but not loudly enough. It’s a question of emphasis. Which brings me to why the speech was bad for the Jews.

Of the seven major themes in his address–he enumerated them–the first was the need to unite against extremism and the second was the need to liberate the Palestinians (while, of course, keeping Israel safe, by measures he didn’t explain)–”the second major source of tension that we need to discuss.” Palestinian liberation got higher priority in this speech than the spread of nuclear weapons, democracy, religious freedom, and women’s rights. He mentioned the Shoah and the need to combat Holocaust denial, but he also compared, albeit indirectly, to the plight of African-Americans during slavery.

True, he did that in the context of telling them to stop their violence. There was a lot of attempt at balance. But as with the bow and handshake, he just went too far. In this case, with words, he bent over too far backwards, and more importantly he set the wrong priorities. He reinforced his foolish linkage between the Palestinian plight–a plight I too care and have written about–and the Iranian nuclear program by listing it second in the order of his major concerns–before nuclear proliferation, democracy, and religious and women’s rights. He also reinforced the idea, so common in the Muslim world and Europe, that the Palestinian problem is more important than any of those.

And you can bet which part of this speech is at this moment reverberating around the anti-Israel world.

Today is Erev Shavuot, the eve of the Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah to Moses and the Hebrews at Sinai–the Torah that says three times, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is also when the book of Ruth is chanted from the pulpit, that wonderful story of how a daughter of the Moabites–the neighboring tribe that was the Hebrews’ greatest enemy–embraced, and was embraced by, the Jewish people.

Today too, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas meets with President Obama. Hillary Clinton spoke in advance for Obama when she said this morning that all West Bank settlement activity must stop, including “natural growth” of existing settlements. Israel quickly countered (through government spokesman Mark Regev) that “normal life” in the settlements (read “natural growth”) would continue.

However, reading this as pure defiance is naïve. Netanyahu has pressed his cabinet to move toward loosening restrictions on Palestinian movement. He has dismantled two settlement outposts and is planning to remove more. And “natural growth” will be limited to homebuilding within the current boundaries of settlements.

On the other side, the Palestinian Authority has stepped up activity against Hamas militants in the West Bank, and may have cooperated in an Israeli operation that resulted in the death of a key Hamas operative earlier today. And the chief Palestinian peace negotiator said that Jewish settlers can become dual citizens of Israel and the future Palestinian state.

So behind the scenes, things are moving along. Meanwhile, half the pundits in two countries and more than a few in dozens more have blathered about Bibi’s first face time with Barack ten days ago. I’m not clever enough to outthink them all, but I will tell you about two of the dumbest things I’ve read about it—both in The New York Times.

The first, which was by Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, appeared on Thursday and was called, “Keeping Score on Obama vs. Netanyahu.” These reporters, whose findings were buried on page 11, had the bright idea to ask a bunch of knowledgeable people whether Barack or Bibi won.

If you discount the anonymous White House officials who (as always) were “talking their book,” the consensus seems to be that Obama got the short end of the stick. Bibi asked for a timetable on patience with Iran and got it. Barack asked for a halt in settlement activity and got an explanation of how hard it would be for Bibi politically.

So here comes the dumb part: Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who is known to have long since lost patience with the Jewish state, said: “I’m asking the question, did our president get suckered?” To answer yes (as Indyk implies), you have to think two things: one, Obama wanted and expected more from Bibi; two, he thought he got more than he really did.

I doubt that either is true. I think Barack (the savviest politician our democracy has seen in many years) is quite aware of how Israel’s democracy works, and of just how far he can push a prime minister with a dubious coalition. I think he is much smarter than the left wing of his party—Indyk and worse—and in foreign policy that means a dose of realpolitik that will lead him to talk left and act center-right again and again.

Speaking of which, Indyk is far from the left-est that leftists get. That prize goes to one Flynt Leverett and his co-author Hillary Mann Leverett, who also get the gold for what we can call un-realpolitik. Their article, titled, “Have We Already Lost Iran?” takes Obama sorely to task—for not sucking up to the Iranians enough.

I kid you not. They think he is being too tough on Iran, and that he must make a lot more sycophantic overtures and concessions in order for us to please the ayatollahs (and Ahmadinejad) enough for them to actually want to talk to us. Their great fear is that Obama may be listening to Dennis Ross, who is pessimistic about Iran ever coming around and who reportedly thinks that we must make some serious overtures (the ones Obama has already made) so that when the time comes to really put the screws to the would-be New Persian Empire, we can at least say we tried. Then, maybe, the European gentlemen who pass for diplomats can squeal a bit less loudly when America and Israel do what needs to be done.

I can’t read Ross’s mind or Obama’s, but you don’t have to read Ahmadinejad’s mind—just his speeches. Whether he wins re-election or not, the Iranian polity solidly backs his government’s nuclear program, their long-range missile program, their take-over-Lebanon-and-the-West-Bank-just-like-they-took-over-Gaza program, their Holocaust denial program, their Jews-are-pigs-and-monkeys program, and their eradicate-Israel program. Ross too has been clear on one thing, as described in his new book with David Makovsky), Myths, Illusions, and Peace. “Linkage”—the old claim, now accepted publicly by Obama, that a solution to the Palestinian problem is the key to solving all other Middle East issues, including the Iranian threat—is an utterly stupid idea.

No doubt the Leveretts would like to see Obama have face time with the two-bit Iranian dictator and bow even lower than he did to the Saudi prince. I predict that Obama will do no such thing. I think he is on board with Dennis Ross’s idea of our future difficulties with Iran, and how we can best deal with them. And I think he will say whatever is necessary to mollify the suicidal left—like the Leveretts and the wet-behind-the-ears twenty-somethings who manned his campaign—but will consult with those who know what needs to be done, and do it–or at least protest minimally when Israel does it.

Evil exists in this world, and it is embodied in the current rulers of Iran among others. Obama’s grasp of that fact will determine how successful his foreign policy is for the next few years, and will help determine his chances for reelection. Those who think he can veer left on foreign policy and security even as he does the same in domestic policy don’t understand America.

We’re a centrist country with a bipolar tendency, and when we sense extremist dangers in either direction, we swing back. It’s what got Obama elected, and it’s what will get him defeated if he pays too much heed to the foolishness of the foreign-policy left. In contrast, if he stays the course with Israel and the Road Map, patiently helping the Palestinian Authority to defeat Hamas and develop a good life for its people–while at the same time defying and blocking instead of toadying to Iran–he may be re-elected in a landslide, and deserve it.

A happy and healthy Shavuot, Chag Sameach to all.

Over the past few weeks, while I’ve been writing about the plight of Palestinians, events affecting Israel have proceeded worldwide: The Second Durban Conference on Racism in Geneva, the AIPAC annual conference in Washington, Pope Benedict XVI’s long visit to the Middle East, and meetings by both President Shimon Peres and, yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with President Obama in the Oval Office. Some key events and remarks quickly describe the world as it is now.

On Monday April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday, at the Durban II meeting, Iranian leader Ahmadinejad called Israel "cruel and racist;" dozens of Western diplomats walked out. He routinely denies the Holocaust and calls for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and the U.S., Canada, and Israel had already refused to attend. Peres denounced him and the meeting in his usual quiet, sad way: "Criticism of the Jewish State is also tinged with chilling anti-Semitism. Among those who collaborated with the Nazis, and those who stood by and let the Holocaust happen, there are those who criticize the one state that rose to grant refuge to Holocaust survivors. The one state that will prevent another Holocaust." He went on, "The gas has dissipated, but the poison remains. There are still Holocaust deniers and hot-headed skinheads in the world, those who bear the sort of visceral hatred that leads to racist murder."

On May 4 Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff born of Israeli parents, told AIPAC that "Iran is the number-one threat to the Middle East," but he went on to say that Israeli-Palestinian cooperation is necessary if Iran is to be countered effectively. This was extremely disturbing to many Jewish observers. A few days later Alan Dershowitz wrote in the New York Post, “Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is dangerous…Emanuel has it exactly backwards: if there is any linkage, it goes the other way – defanging Iran will promote the end of the occupation and the two-state solution. Threatening not to help Israel in relation to Iran unless it moves toward a two-state solution first is likely to backfire.”

May 6 was the date of Peres’ meeting with Obama, and he cautioned the American president that the world must view the Iranian threat as similar to that of Nazi Germany before the Second World War. "Iran is a threat not just to Israel, but to the whole world. As Jews, after being subjected to the Holocaust, we cannot close our eyes in light of the grave danger emerging from Iran . . . If Europe had dealt seriously with Hitler at that time, the terrible Holocaust and the loss of millions of people could have been avoided. We can't help but make the comparison.” He also explained to reporters the rapidly changing framework in the Middle East. "I told [Obama] that a great change has begun, because today most of the Sunni world does not see the problem as Israel, but Iran.”

On May 8, Al-Quds al-Arabiyeh reported that Egyptian security forces had found hundreds of weapons and explosive devices hidden along the border between Israel and the Sinai Peninsula, including 266 rockets, 40 mines, 50 mortar shells, 20 hand grenades and at least three anti-aircraft missiles.

On May 10, Prime Minister Netanyahu told his cabinet that Israel must ease restrictions on West Bank Palestinians: "I think we need to make a big effort, within the given security constraints, to make things easier for the Palestinians." He said he would try to minimize "bureaucratic red tape" to help advance the Palestinian economy.

Also on May 10, on ABC television, U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones told George Stephanopolous something very similar to what Emanuel said to AIPAC. "There are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution." He elaborated on the idea that a solution between Israel and the Palestinians could reduce the Iranian threat. This now appears to be Obama administration policy, and as Dershowitz points out, it is exactly backwards.

On May 12 Pope Benedict, who had once been a member of the Hitler Youth and then served in the Nazi army, visited the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. He said: "One can rob a neighbor of possessions, opportunity or freedom. One can weave an insidious web of lies . . . Yet, try as one might, one can never take away the name of a fellow human being. May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of goodwill remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!" But he was criticized by Holocaust survivors for saying that Jews had been “killed,” instead of “murdered.” Rabbi Lau, who directs the memorial, went on to say that the speech "didn't have a single word of condolence, compassion or sharing the pain of the Jewish people as such. There was a lot about the pain of humanity, cosmopolitan words." During his long visit to the region, the pope spoke up repeatedly for Palestinians, but did not say clearly that there should be a Jewish state.

The same day, it was reliably reported that Iran has deployed surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missile batteries in the Persian Gulf to defend itself against an attack on its nuclear facilities. It was also reported that Iran has the capability to deliver missiles to Israeli cities.

On May 17, former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf said on CNN that it is a mistake for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq. “It’s not that easy, the situation is not that simple . . . We have to see the whole region. We have to see the effect of leaving. First of all, within Iraq, there’s a Shi’a community, there’s a Sunni community, there’s a Kurd community. What are the sensitivities of Turkey against the Kurds? What is the linkage of the Shi’a with Iran? What is the linkage of these with Hezbollah in Lebanon? What effect will it create in Lebanon? And then, what effect will it create in the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia? We need to analyze all this very deliberately and not take any action . . . that will destabilize the whole region.” In talking so broadly, Musharaf did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike the Obama administration, he understands that conflict in this region does not revolve around Israel.

Finally, on May 18—yesterday—Netanyahu and Obama met, and despite pouring syrup over everything, they appeared to be at an impasse. Obama pushed Netanyahu to work harder on the peace process, and once again claimed that peace with the Palestinians would neutralize the Iranian threat. Netanyahu reminded Obama that Iran’s accelerating nuclearization threatens the entire region, and that it cannot be allowed to reach its logical conclusion. Current efforts to talk to Iran are accomplishing nothing. Coming months may reveal a deepening rift between the way these two leaders see the world—the difference being that only one of them has his country’s life at stake.

Several years ago my friend Susan Lourenço, who used to be an American academic, took me early one summer morning to a checkpoint deep in the West Bank. There, along with several other women in MachsomWatch, we spent the morning watching young–very young–IDF soldiers check the IDs and bags of hundreds of Palestinians on their way to work or school.

There were no obvious abuses, perhaps in part because of the watchful eyes of the women. A couple of young men were detained under a corrugated plastic shelter that gave them a little protection from the sun. A few mild altercations occurred between people on line and the soldiers; one or two of the MachsomWatch women went up to the soldiers and inquired about them. Slowly, the line kept moving.

This is daily life for all Palestinians who need to go anywhere, even within the West Bank. It isn’t what I would call a severe kind of oppression; it’s not much more onerous than our having to wait on long security lines and be searched on a really bad day at the airport. But it’s an everyday—twice a day—occurrence for many thousands of Palestinians, and in a community desperately in need of development, it’s a big daily economic setback.

Settlers and other Israelis, of course, move around the West Bank with no such obstacles. One day on that same trip I took the wrong highway exit and accidentally left Israel, driving my rental car into another part of East Jerusalem. Finding my way back, I saw a huge line of cars waiting to be checked. But I noticed that there was an open lane adjacent to the line and, feeling sheepish, guilty, and a bit adventurous, I drove down it, passing the waiting cars. It led to the other side of the IDF booth, where I stopped. A soldier looked at my passport and waved me on.

The need for these security measures is not lost on me; along with the security fence, they have reduced terror-related deaths from hundreds a year to zero. I don’t question that. But, like many Israelis today, I do question how long this situation can go on.

Many savvy people in the field of international relations are saying that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution is slowly closing. At this moment in history, the idea of a Jewish and a Palestinian state side by side is widely accepted throughout the world, even much of the Arab world. Some very big sticking points, especially the exact path of the border and the question of a right of return for Palestinians to Israel proper, remain to be worked out. No one thinks that will be easy.

But a growing number of voices outside the Jewish world are calling for a single state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. If these voices prevail, along with those of the settlers who believe in Greater Israel, there will be a majority-Arab state that will inevitably become either non-Jewish or non-democratic. The world reluctantly tolerates many Israeli compromises with democracy, from the treatment of Israeli Arabs as second-class citizens to the ongoing but temporary occupation of the West Bank.

Any Jew who thinks the same world will stretch its tolerance to accommodate a single state in which a Jewish minority permanently rules an Arab majority does not understand that world. Such a state would truly be the apartheid state that Israel is now unjustly accused of being. It would be internally unstable, the target of relentless hostility from its Arab neighbors, and a country far more isolated on the world scene than it is now. And yes, that is possible.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been prime minister for a month now, governing from a conservative coalition. But he is a pragmatist, and on May 17th he will have his pragmatism tested in his first meeting with our new president. He will find Mr. Obama to be exceedingly intelligent, well informed, sympathetic, and prepared to act in the best interests of the people of the United States.

This president, unlike the last, may not feel that those interests are exactly super-imposable on the interests of Israel. He will be friendly, no doubt, and he will be looking over his shoulder at his supporters in the American Jewish community. But he will want very much to move the Middle East situation forward toward the two-state solution that is for the moment widely accepted.

That means, ultimately, rights, respect, freedom of movement, pride, independence, and a real chance at prosperity for millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. This cannot be achieved in a simple-minded way, and it will never happen except against the background of true and lasting military security for the Jewish state. But it is increasingly clear that the same security will be even more threatened by indefinitely prolonging the current stalemate.

The women of MachsomWatch, whether or not they are religious, have taken to heart the mitzvah—the commandment—that appears three times in the Torah: “You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

If there is going to be a Jewish state in Israel fifty years from now—and I hope with all my heart that there will be—it is going to have to be one that treats the Arab stranger in its midst without wrong or oppression, and, almost certainly, one that lives side by side with a free, democratic, proud, and prosperous Palestinian state. If this is impossible, Israel is impossible.

In May of 2000 I had the privilege of visiting with my then-new friend Amir (a pseudonym meaning “prince” or “leader”) in his home in Jericho. I was introduced to him by my daughter Susanna, who had spent a college semester studying the Middle East peace process; Amir was one of her teachers, and when I visited her toward the end of her stay, he became one of mine.

We had been on a trip to Amman, and when we came back, Amir wanted to show us the hospitality of his home. Unfortunately, an IDF blockade was guarding the road from Jerusalem to Jericho; since a shooting had occurred that day, no one was being allowed in. But Amir was not without resources, and he found a back way for our little two-car caravan to crash through the bush and sand from the Dead Sea up to Jericho.

I have to say it was a bit unnerving when we rolled into a Palestinian police camp and were suddenly surrounded by young uniformed men with guns and clubs. But Amir talked them into letting us pass.

Although it was near midnight when we arrived at his home, he wanted to introduce us to a family of his neighbors. The father, like Amir, had been briefly jailed in Israel for acting up as a very young man during the first intifada. Now he was entertaining American Jewish visitors in the courtyard of his home. His wife was serving delicious thick coffee and his children were milling and playing around, pausing to gawk at their father’s bizarre guests.

Two other men joined us, also friends of Amir’s and of our host, and Amir explained in Arabic who we were. Evidently he had told them that I was an anthropologist, because one of them looked at me and asked Amir something. “He wants to know,” came the translation, “if you think we come from apes.”

I had many thoughts, in a matter of seconds, under that vast dome of stars above the ancient streets of Jericho, but in the end I decided that truth would be better than political or religious correctness. “Yes,” I said, “a very long time ago.” The man nodded, gazing into my eyes. As he spoke to Amir I felt the tension building.

“He thinks,” Amir said, gesturing toward his friend, “we’re still in the jungle.”

And so we are, all of us, and so we are likely to stay, unless we can overcome the fear and hatred that well up out of us as much as they do out of any other territorial animal. I understand now as then that the situation is very complex. But I will say, now as then, that fair treatment for those men and their wives and children—a chance to live and prosper in a free Jericho in a sovereign Palestinian state—is necessary for Israel’s future.

The next morning, over an American sort of coffee, I stood with Amir on the steps of his family home. He bragged that morning about his aunt’s rejection of Yasser Arafat when, as a suitor decades before, he had stood on those very same steps. Amir pointed out the highest buildings we could see in the town, all homes of Arafat’s cronies in Fatah. He mentioned the bank accounts in Switzerland, pointing out potholes in the street and describing physically decaying schools and clinics. Amir was not naïve, and he did not support Hamas; but he understood that Hamas was not corrupt

Jericho was not Amir’s family’s only home. It was more like a country cottage. For many generations, they had lived in Jerusalem, where his mother still had an apartment in the Muslim Quarter. But there was more.

Amir unfolded an ancient deed in Arabic and explained that it held his family’s right to a substantial plot of land on the Mount of Olives—not as a burial spot but as a place to live. They had more than once turned down offers of millions of shekels to cede that claim and hand that piece of paper across a table. Their right to live in their ancient homeland was worth more than millions.

I am not naïve either. I don’t see a future that includes Amir’s family settling back into the their old land on the Mount of Olives, where thousands of Jews are buried and thousands more will be, so they can be as near as possible to the point of arrival of Moshiach, their Messiah.

But Amir’s family will have to get more than millions. They will have to get the right to an independent state in Palestine, one that includes for them a comfortable apartment in Old Jerusalem, a second home in Jericho, a seat of representative government in East Jerusalem, a contiguous nation including almost all of what is now the occupied West Bank with an easily traveled train and highway to Gaza,  and above all a sense of pride and hope for the future that puts the thought of violence out of the minds of the young men who will one day call Amir father.

There are many obstacles to this outcome, but most Israeli Jews want it to happen, because they understand that it is the only hope for their own country’s future. After that knowledge, it is mainly a question of will.

I have to confess I have friends in the settler movement. One family, with whom I spent a beautiful, warm, and moving Shabbat some years ago, lost a son in the recent Gaza war. The mother, a wise and witty social worker, and the father, a skilled and dedicated physician, created as fine a family atmosphere as I have known.

But when we came to discuss the future of the occupied territories, the dad opened a map of Greater Israel, including Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and even parts of Lebanon and Jordan, and said that this was ancient Israel, as promised. When I asked about the fate of the Palestinians, he said, “They can stay. They can have their goats…”

Another family I know consists of a husband and wife—I’ll call them Saul and Sarah–who are leaders in education and communications within their movement, and five children who have all served in the IDF. Unlike with some of my Tel-Avivian friends, who are much more congenial to my philosophy, I never heard Saul or Sarah express the view that their children might do well to avoid service because of the ideology or policy of a particular Israeli government they disagreed with.

They, like me, were originally New Yorkers, but they have lived in the West Bank for most of the occupation, and they believe it belongs to the Jewish people. Like the kibbutzniks of old, their children are sabras, fighters, Jews. One dusty day after I had visited with them, after they had showed me around and bragged a bit—“You see those new buildings? They’re illegal!”—we drove down to Jerusalem together.

They pointed out the Jewish settlements, always in privileged spots on hilltops and ridges, and in the wadis the Arab villages, almost as ancient as the dust. The end of the tour and the waning sun emboldened me to ask them, “Is there any circumstance in which you could see giving up even a single settlement?” “No,” was Sarah’s simple answer. This was before even the Gaza withdrawal.

So I asked, “What will happen?” There was a long pause, pregnant with shared understanding of the impasse and danger this nay-saying would occasion, and then she said, “Moshiach will come.”

If I was speechless, it wasn’t just because I don’t literally believe in the Messiah. It was because of their assurance that they knew what would bring about the advent of this divine messenger, and that they felt it relieved them of responsibility to try to think through more mundane solutions. Even in my religious heyday, I believed that God helps those who helps themselves, and that it was arrogant to feel sure that you could count on God’s help with a plan of your own.

When Maimonides articulated the Thirteen Articles of the Jewish Faith—incidentally, in Arabic–he did include faith in the coming of moshiach (“Though he may tarry, yet I await him”) but he did not seem to say that we should count on this hero to show up just at the moment when our own plans need a convenient solution. After nine centuries of divine tarrying since, through Jewish crises large and small, should we be certain that an act of God will intervene to solve the Palestinian problem?

One might equally speculate that moshiach awaits evidence that we can solve our own problems. Perhaps he is thinking not of the fullest extent of the Promised Land, but of a different kind of promise. For instance, the Torah’s injunction, “You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

If I were awaiting the coming of the Messiah, I would be wondering what he is waiting for, not feeling sure that I already knew. And I would at least consider that decent treatment of the Palestinian stranger among the Jewish people might be a prerequisite for this ultimate blessing—especially since that very stranger was also present when the first Jews read that passage in the Torah for the very first time.

President Barack Hussein Obama just became the first American head of state to host a Passover Seder in the White House, making clear that he is not just a friend to the Jewish people, but one who understands Jewish identity and history. The Seder is the most faithfully observed event on the Jewish calendar, and one of the most moving and meaningful, celebrating the liberation of Jews from their first overwhelming oppression. Obama, being black, understands and identifies.

At the same time, Obama and his administration have been laying the political groundwork for a potential confrontation with Israel when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington and when Obama returns the visit in Jerusalem. Netanyahu and his far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, have both made recent statements that appear to draw Israel back from the Annapolis declaration and even from the two-state solution.

Obama responded promptly and in no uncertain terms to these tests. He reiterated America’s commitment to the process begun at Annapolis and to the establishment of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. We sometimes forget that George W. Bush was the first president to declare support for a Palestinian state, and that although he thoroughly indulged Israel’s dilatory approach to it, he ultimately did become involved.

Obama is continuing the Bush administration’s official policies, but the circumstances are very different. Israel has a much more right-leaning government than it had during the Bush years, and the U.S. has a much more left-leaning one. President Obama understands that many members of Congress are strong supporters of Israel, and that is why he is intently communicating with them, taking steps to soften the possible blow of an open disagreement with Israel’s new government. Why should there be a problem?

In the first place, Netanyahu is beholden to the large minority of Israelis—around 30 percent—who oppose a Palestinian state, and to a smaller but very vocal minority who strongly support the settlers’ movement. This means people who want to keep the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely as a part of a greater Israel, an outcome incompatible with a Jewish state unless Palestinians become a permanently disenfranchised and oppressed majority. In this scenario, Israel really would resemble apartheid South Africa.

Many settlers are trying to bring this about by illegally expanding settlements and satellites of settlements, creating facts on the ground that they believe will lead to annexation. Apparently they were not impressed by the fact that their comrades were dragged out of Jewish settlements in Gaza—by force, by Jewish soldiers, and on the orders of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had been one of their greatest friends.

Just like the state of Israel sixty years ago, the Palestinian state is an idea whose time has come, or at least will come soon. Most Israeli Jews understand this. But it will not come automatically. Palestinians and Israelis have obligations under the “road map” and under the Annapolis declaration, and neither side has met those obligations.

Palestinians as a people have neither meaningfully recognized Israel’s right to exist, nor renounced extreme violence as a means to destroy it. Large numbers support Hamas, which is determined to overthrow Israel and which rules in Gaza and has great influence throughout the West Bank. It is closely aligned with Iran, which is rapidly nuclearizing and which has repeatedly called for an end to the Jewish state. And it continues to rocket and shell Israeli towns.

But Israel continues to look the other way as settlers build and multiply. It maintains a network of checkpoints not just around but within the West Bank that deeply hurts Palestinian economic health, and it keeps 1.5 million Gazans from leaving that territory for almost any reason—even months after a supposedly successful war on Hamas in Gaza. It is fine and true to say that these measures have saved Israeli lives, but to say that they are tenable in the long run is sheer folly.

On top of that well-known collection of insults against Palestinians in the territories, we now see increasing pressures on the Arab minority within Israel. They have always been second-class citizens, just as blacks were until recently in the U.S., but now they are being formally threatened with loyalty tests that could lead them to lose their Israeli citizenship altogether. The line between the racist right-wing fringe that has long called for expulsion of Israel citizens and a party in power loudly demanding loyalty tests has blurred.

I understand why some Israelis see a need for even the most extreme of these measures. I see the need for some of them myself. But at this point in history it is no longer possible to simply say that they’re needed for security and ignore the suffering caused by them. At this point in history Israel must act as boldly in the pursuit of peace as it has in the execution of war; because if we have learned one thing from history, it is that without justice, there will never be any peace.