Joe Biden

The unprecedented enthusiasm in the Arab and Muslim World which greeted Barack Obama's election win nearly 20 months ago has been replaced with disappointment and anger.

Millions of Arabs and Muslims applauded when Barack Obama addressed the Muslim World in Cairo on June 4 last year, and cheered him when he said "America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own".

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid the uproar over Israel's deadly raid on the flotilla bringing aid to the Gaza Strip, it's important to note what is not happening.

The White House does not expect the violent incident to sink already-minimal relations between Israel and the Arab world. Arab support would be essential to the long-sought Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.

Nor is the United States, unlike most of the world, chastising Israel for forcibly halting an aid flotilla bound for Gaza. Quite the opposite.

CHICAGO (AP) -- The Obama administration voiced concern Monday about the Israel's deadly commando attack on ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

White House spokesman Bill Burton, speaking a day before President Barack Obama had been scheduled to host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks at the White House, said the United States "deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained" in the incident.

My colleagues and I founded the American Task Force on Palestine in 2003 with a clear, focused mission: to advocate that a negotiated end of conflict agreement that allows for two states, Israel and Palestine, to live side-by-side in peace and security is in the American national interest. Over the past seven years, we have been gratified by the development of the understanding that this is a vital national interest for our country into a clear policy focus for our government and a growing consensus within the foreign policy establishment.

The US is the only world power that can help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace. Few dispute the unique American standing. For the US to be able to help shepherd a serious peace process, America's trust towards the leaders of both parties in the conflict is critical.

Seventy-eight percent of Jewish Americans supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race. Minority Whip Eric Cantor, the House of Representatives' sole Republican Jewish member, is out to lure his religious group to his side of the political aisle by bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Capitol Hill.

J Street has gone over to the dark side. It claims to be "a pro-Israel, pro peace lobby." It has now become neither. Its Executive Director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has joined the off key chorus of those who falsely claim that Israel, by refusing to make peace with the Palestinians, is placing the lives of American soldiers at risk.

Has a tipping point finally been reached in the Middle East? Lucy Netanyahu pulled the football away from Charlie Brown Obama once too often. And so now he has to realize, or at least accept publicly, that Israel has no intention of giving up control of Jerusalem, if not the West Bank. Joe Biden even linked Iraq and Afghanistan to the goings on in Israel. Now that's progress -- acknowledging even more of the obvious.

The apparently escalating conflict between the US and Israel did not have to occur. It must be resolved now, before it does irreparable harm to prospects for peace.

President Obama's abysmal attitude toward the State of Israel and his humiliating treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shocking. In the Washington Post on March 24th, Jackson Diehl wrote,