Obama seeking 'upgrade' for Netanyahu-Abbas summit

Obama will push peace for the next 3 1/2 years and most likely another 4 years after that. The politics are in his favor. Obama started the peace process from Day One which is different from every other President. Petra read the Arab Peace proposal and pull your old fashion thinking into the 21 century. Israel screwed up Cast Lead all by themselves , did you notice that it stop before the inaugration..Obama has no control over your troops! USA security is at risk by Israeli actions; and educated and leading Americans are becoming tired of this ..American Taxpayers are exhausted in paying for Israel's mistakes.

he wont be around for a "Second" term. Seems everything he touches turns to dust. This battle has been going on almost forever. Israel wins again!! hip hip hooray! Soon, adios Obama.

this is typical diplomacy obama style.no substance whatever.

....but let's not fool ourselves here. The vast majority of the (non ideologically motivated) settlers will wanna go "home to Israel", once an independent Palestinian state will be established. So you really don't wanna tell me, that the state of Israel is going to invest many millions of Shekels into houses that will be inhabited by Palestinian families in the future...??? Did the current economical crisis not touch Israel at all...??? Apart from that, the vast majority of Israelis who support your position of continued settle- ment expansion, do not wanna see a future Palestinian state at any costs. You will be pretty much a "single voice" there among a sea of people who don't share your view. And you will then be dragged with them together in a binational state, whether you want it or not....

his ego wont allow him to admit that he will be as all the others when it comes to 'making peace w/ Pal terrorists". A failure. Another example is Afghanistan. Did he actually think that by Russia losing he would win this war, magically? Didn't he read and absorb the facts and deaths related to this old war? A shame he thinks as he does, American troops are dying daily due to these same terrorists that he would like to 'talk to'. They don't want peace, they don't want to talk, they want each Jew out of Israel, all of it. If there is another "Cast Lead" I hope Israel completes the job and wont 'holdback' due to Obama's interference in a matter he knows nothing about, like Russia's loss in Afghanistan, Obama puts OUR troops in an impossible situation. I seriously doubt he will be reelected due naive thinking and planning, Obama's killing US. He should recall, "The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions." He has never been in the military, and he's never lived in Israel.

Unfortunately you seem to develop instant amnesia and switch to victim mode about why you do not have your own state and why this conflict need never have happenned. 80 + % of the British mandate of Palestine going to your brothers who form the majority of Jordan and the state of Palestine was not enough. Have you ever wondered why 200 years of Arab murder attempted genocide and terror might make Israelis security conscious? Or is it what your government indoctrinates into the next generation,racist lies hatred and rejection. Then you complain about security.

For me, the construction or expansion of settlements is not an end in itself, but a warfare tactic designed to bring the Palestinians to heel. If you had been following my postings carefully, you would have understood that I am for the dismantlement of most (but not all) of the settlements in the West Bank, bhut now is not the time. They m,ust be further expanded and reinforced until the Palestinians come to their senses and surrender. Only then can the relinquishment of Israeli control over the settlements be discussed. "Relinquishment of Israeli control", I said, and not evacuation, for if these Jews are willing to live under Palestinian rule, they should be allowed to. Complete evacuation means "Judenrein", like Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

....will enjoy good minority-rights in a future "Greater Israel". Would be rather foolish to believe that the day won't come when the rest of the world will insist on the concept of "1 cititzen = 1 vote". And yes, if necessary also through a much thinner purse of the average Israeli citizen (economical sanctions, boycotts). What you are advising in your post is simply "suicide in rates". Not more and not less, I'm afraid....

How was peace made with Germany and Japan in World War II? By decisively defeating them and forcing them to accept an unconditional surrender. So must it be in the Israeli-Palestinian War. Stop you meddling and let the Israelis defeat the Palestinians in their own way - which includes building and expanding settlements - until the Palestinians have openly accepted Israel as a Jewish State, relingquished any dreams of a "Return", and have given up any claims to a capital in Jerusalem.

"Netanyahu aides: Summit with Obama, Abbas `symbolically` significant (Army Radio)"

he did his utmost to solve the problems of the israel palestine conflict.and he failed utterly. what chance has obama got?

Ehud Barak, like all past, present and future Israeli leaders, keeps repeating the mother of all catch-all golden rule: Any settlement will have to preserve Israel's security and interest. Security from what: Palestinan ramshakle police forces' outmoded small caliber rifles, or hamas fizzle stick fireworks. And interest in what: confiscate more and more Palestinian lands for the ever boundless appetite of zionist land grab. The Israel project keeps rolling and the whores of Europe and America and Micronesia (for God's sake!!) will not even hide their ugly gutless smirks.

The arabs have no legitimate claim to the land defined as Judea, samaria, Gaza and Israel. Who gave them any legitimacy? they took it as a god given right. however it is not their land and it never was theirs. It belonged to the brits and French whp split up the Ottoman Empire in 1920 after WWI. Before then it belonged to the Ottoman empire, now reduced to just Tiurkey. Before the turks they were overrun by the mongols and before that they were fighting over the place with the Crusaders. Before then the Arabs did invade and conquer under mohamed, before that the place was dominated by the roman empire and before then by the greeks and the Persians.

Obama trying to upgrade the Netanyahu-Abbas summit, while Ashkenazi was downgrading yesterday the IDF from "the most moral" to a "moral" army. What's next...??? :)

actually, if I imagine a Jew of the european middle ages, somewhere in a crowded and narrow ghetto, occasionally tormented by pogroms, explaining to the kids in the cheder that it's a divine injunction to occupy shomron... When I think of my pastor in the small protestant parish I belonged to as a kid... but who knows, maybe if he had had a really utopical political project for us like conquering the catholic Italian capital, maybe we would have had fewer difficulties to listen to his sermons.

Talk war not peace. At the time of writing this another rocket has reportedly landed in Nahariya

Tho it seems a small and token photo op, the meeting will in fact start the ball rolling again. All three are not dummies, just trying to jockey for advantage, and Obama knows history is calling them all at this moment to begin real discussions. Jerusalem can and should be divided, the refugees cannot return because the Jewish refugees who took their places outnumbered them and cannot return to the arab lands. The clock can only go foward when it is fixed, not backward. Time for eveyone to reboot and be reasonable. Abbas must recognize Israel, Israel must stop settlement, and Obama should listen before he starts pushing.

1- No pal can do it without the go ahead of the arab nations... 2- And if they agree to do it, then watchout Israel because it be a lie....

Don't EVEN try to bring "biblical injunctions" into it, for if you do, you should know that it is a biblical injunction for Jews to keep Yehuda and Shomron (Judea and Samaria, or the "West Bank"). Never mind that the oldest continual Jewish communities on earth are found right inside - you guessed it - the "West Bank"! And the lands of most all settlements were BOUGHT, not stolen. Keep to the facts, please.

You can count on that.

1.That world leaders cannot find a solution to The Middle East Conflict indicate something more fundamental is at fault: false preaching. 2.As a solid basis for this argument, preachers today have the same DNA as those who preached few centuries ago that the world is flat, that the earth is the center of the universe and that God created the earth in six 24-hour days. 3.The same preachers claim that two thousand years ago they have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 4.So then what? Are we stuck in the middle of nowhere? 5.A Biblical advise to world leaders and so-called religious preachers: look no further. Finding the small boy with Five Loaves will be tantamount to pressing the reset button on religious servers worldwide.

Sounds like an all out effort by President Obama. While I didn't vote for him, he deserves a lot of credit for taking this on. Let's all wish him luck!

either there will be the beginning of a peace process or more jitterbugging to postpone that sacred day. how many more innocents on both sides need to die before the leadership recognizes peace is the preferable path. now is the best time to sit down and begin. the settlements must stop because they are stealing land and that is against the biblical injunction: tho shalt not steal. the Palestinians must acknowledge Israel. shall we begin and all be blessed?

Ahmadinjad would make a great clown for any party. He can keep everyone entertained with his Hitler routines and then you can spin him around to play Pin The Tail On The Jackass.

I don't know whether to laugh of cry! Are you serious that the US needs to "upgrade" the summit? They are already planning what Obama would announce at the end of the meeting? They already know the outcome? Is he psychic? Or so persuasive that Israel will agreed to do what ever he says? I think the timing is ironic! What kind of a guilt-trip will be laid on the PM before Yom Kippur? Why wasn't the timing three weeks ago? Sly fox is on the loose...watch the hens.

For sure the world media will be focused on the upcoming summit, and it's an opportunity for Israel to show the people of the world whether it's a law-abiding democracy or a fascist theocracy that violates International law and UN security resolutions with impunity - should be quite interesting!

"Upgrading"=forcing Israeli delegation.Not so difficult since Barak is a member of the delegation , eager as ever to repeat and surpass his surrender to Arafat .