Just how far would America go for Israeli-Palestinian peace?
George Bush's Middle East tour included a short sideshow visit to Israel, apparently to help Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to push forward the Annapolis process, which trudges forward against all odds and the predictions of no small number of analysts that there is little logic to a peace plan between domestically unstable and even despised leaders.
An American president's blessing can go a long way, since American commitment can potentially carry a financial and military robustness that cannot be matched by any other on Earth.
But, as Olmert struggles in the almost-constant grip of challenges to his power from the Left (Barak threatening to leave his government) and Right (Lieberman is already out and the rest of the Right is waiting in the wings), it is an open and crucial question just how much American help Olmert can reasonably expect. How far would America go to reify the Annapolis process? What price would the US be willing to pay to remove the Palestinian drama from being the wrench stuck in its Middle East policy?
Lost in the desert
Often, and especially with politicians, what is not said in a speech is more important than what is.
The only discernible actionable statement to come out of the speeches of the three non-Russian-speaking Israeli politicians at Wednesday's Tribute to Soviet Jewry was about bringing more Russian-speaking Jews to Israel. This speaks volumes about the extent to which Israeli officialdom is blind to the broadest and most worrying trends of the Jewish world.
This was noticed by the Russian-speakers in the room at the Jerusalem International Convention Center and by veterans of Jewish organizational life. This is significant because the deepest troubles afflicting world Jewry today - assimilation, lack of identification with Judaism and Israel - have hit the Russian-speakers hardest. And Israeli officialdom's only solution on hand seems to be encouraging everyone everywhere to make aliya.
About this blog Haviv's Blog
Jerusalem Post correspondent, Haviv Rettig, blogs about covering the Jewish world and the challenges ahead.
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