Israel braces for Obama's greater engagement in Iran, Palestine

The relations with these states must change; it seems like a more active stance will be taken by the next American President, Mr. Obama, and he will spearhead discussions on all sides of these issues, rather than take a particular standpoint and stay there. Great strides will be made with all our neighbors half a world away!

Well said superfinet.

What the world does not need is someone who chooses a particular side to support in this matter or we will be left in the same state we are currently in with little to no progress.

What is needed is a peaceful moderator. Not someone who wants to go in with guns blazing as we have seen in the past.

I am still baffled that peaceful negotiations seem more threatening to many (as is evident in this article and the US campaign for presidency) than the threat of armed force. The "strike first, ask questions later" mentality that seemed to be all the rage as a military strategy will hopefully be a thing of the past and hopefully we will see a new dawn in peaceful relations in the middle east.

Isreal is a military state. We are involved two very ugly wars soley to defend them. It is time we started acting like a real Superpower again and not like a schoolyard bully protecting poor little Isreal.

Isreal, get off your butts and deal with your part of the world with courage, common sense, and long term intelligence. Quit relying on us to help you. We have many interests over there, not just you.

I appreciate that we finally have a president that will look at all sides, be fair, and be responsible to all involved. I am tried of protecting Isreal as if our lives depend upon it. It does not.

Well, for the first time in 8 years we'll have a President who doesn't believe that we're living in the end times.

Like all other U.S. Presidents, he'll be at a stalemate with them because of the electorate. But at least he'll bring sanity to policy there.

To be honest, I think he'll be too busy to do much there.

I want to see how Obama will handle himself with Israel and the Palestinians.

Can he bridge the gap?

What about Iran? Iran's leader wants to nuke Israel.

Time will tell and events and actions will show his measure.

And so it begins... All the Obama support and now we have to keep it going through all of his decisions... I trust the man's judgement totally but I doubt his massive support will stay so massive after a year or two of trying to solve all of these problems...

The Israel - Palestinian conflict has the potential to throw this world into war if not handled correctly. Our biggest problem here is alot of the money here is controlled by friends of Israel and most likely will be controlled by the friends of Palestine soon with the way gas and oil prices are. The biggest problem in picking sides is you have to tell one group they are wrong and who are we to do that ...

Sorry to disappoint you guys but Obama has offered a top position to Rahm Emmanuel, an Israeli-firster hawk, and Obama's advisors are warmongers.

I don't see any change in the middle east any time soon.

Reality bite's, but this time we have a genius in the white house. We have entrusted Mr. Obama with these decisions. I for one think he has America and the worlds backing at this point.

I stand for Israel, now and forever. Why does everyone here want it destroyed? Are you all anti-Semitic?

from a letter from a friend...

Years ago I read a great book called "You Can Negotiate Anything" by Herb Cohen, where he discusses all of the different negotiating techniques, how to use them, and how to overcome them. One of the tactics he described as the Soviet model, which consists of
1) Coming in with ridiculous demands that are far outside of what the other side can possibly agree to
2) Demanding huge concessions, without any promise of concessions from your side
3) Once any concessions are made, these become the new opening bids, to which you now demand
concessions because in your mind no concessions have ever been made
4) Iterate 2 and 3 until the other side breaks off talks, at which point you blame them for everything
5) Iterate 2 through 4 until you get what you want
The North Koreans are playing this one absolutely straight, as are the Palestinians. It does help if you have people with poor negotiating skills (Carter, who gave Arafat everything he wanted at the expense of Israel) on the other side. It only breaks down when the other side needs success less than you need success (Reagan, who threatened to walk away until the Russians backed down on SALT II).