(edit) Hi Snackman,
On a personal basis, I have a great deal of time for the contributions of both Israelis and Arabs to the world over the millenia. There would be no Western idea of freedom without the likes of Harun al-Raschid, who helped preserve Greek philosophy and develop Arab science and architecture, and the Judaic thinkers who founded the moral architecture which still prevails in the West, and Jewish artists and scientists who have contributed so consistently to Western culture.
Indeed, in the Middle Ages, the culture which tolerated Judaism and within which it thrived was, in fact, Islam!!!
So I'm a partisan for creating a sustainable peace between these remarkable and important peoples, rather than for thinking that the important thing is to preserve the US-Israeli status quo. Whatever works and whatever harms the process of reconciliation interests me.
I also think that, if only for political reasons, it is in the US' interest to help deliver a peace in that region.
Maybe the process of employing the EU as the arbiter is the right answer to all that ails Israel, with Russia and the US as antagonists alongside the Israelis and Palestinians, respectively. But my guess is that it may be worth an experiment to see if Israel has a chance for peace when there's an American president who is seen to be even-handed, rather than to favour Israel over its neighbours.
I could be wrong.
Intrinsically, I don't think it is the US' duty to be pro-Israel, just as I don't think it is in the US' interest to be against it. At the international level, these are two different countries and there is no obvious reason I can think of why the US is quite so obsessive about Israel's problems. But there is a coherent place in principle where the US is friendly with Israel as a democratic and business partner, but neither takes its side in a knee-jerk fashion, nor sides against it. And I suspect that is what Obama is reaching for.
AI
