Drop by for coffee, Obama

It's too bad that Barack Obama isn't planning to drop by next week, on his way from Andrews Air Force Base to Cairo, because we've grown accustomed to visits by U.S. presidents. While Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were in the White House, the situation was the opposite of what it is today: When American presidents came to the Middle East for a visit, which they did quite often, they would leave their luggage at Jerusalem's King David Hotel and make short sorties to the neighboring countries. Or at least they would meet with the Israeli prime minister.

The deviation from that tradition, in short, is the change that Obama believes in.

Everything has turned upside down here too. Except for the days of Golda Meir and Yitzhak Shamir, a student who outdid his master, we have always extended a hand of peace and gotten a punch from the Arabs in return. Thus we went from one war to the next for more than 60 years.

And suddenly, just when it is the Arabs who are extending us a hand, Benjamin Netanyahu model 2009 is busy looking elsewhere.

Therefore, Obama will be especially missed in Israel when he's in our neck of the woods. Were he to hop over from Cairo for a short speech in the Knesset, he would get a lot more out of it than he got from the few hours he wasted with Netanyahu in Washington.

From the Knesset podium, with Shimon Peres sitting to his right and Reuven Rivlin to his left, he would stare at the Israeli people through the television cameras, look them straight in the eye, and officially declare an end to the War of Independence and our historic victory.

Sixty-one years have passed since our Arab neighbors opposed UN Resolution 181, which called for the establishment of two states on the land of Mandatory Palestine, and suddenly they realize they were wrong all along. They see we're here to stay and that anyone who doesn't make peace with us loses out: on America, on the great wide world, on progress, on hope, on the future.

And just as 57 Arab and Muslim countries realize the time has come, they have no one to talk with on our side.

Obama, who on June 4 will speak in Cairo about historic reconciliation between Muslims and Jews, now needs to convince us that this is actually worthwhile. He must tell us about the billions we'll save by not wasting money on settlements that won't be ours for long anyway, about how we'll use those billions to build a new Israel that will serve as the gate to the Near East, and about how we can use all this newly available money to make our kids the smartest in the world and our health system the most user-friendly and accessible - making Scandinavia look like the third world compared to us.

It's not like the world will be completely safe tomorrow, or like the weather will top the news reports. The world has become a dangerous place since 9/11.

An American-European-Arab-Israeli alliance is needed to defeat the axis of evil, and then, with all due respect to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he'll end up like Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein, our previous "Hitlers."

Were Obama to drop in for a moment, he would tell us loud and clear what he told Netanyahu in private: that it's true that the centrifuges are working overtime in Iran, but they're also working in Pakistan.

So, when we're done bombing Natanz, will we start planning the takeover of the nuclear facilities of another Asian power? Obama would calm us down and tell us that a country that has the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad and Dimona and satellites in space doesn't need to be afraid and should stand up straight.

So now that we need you most, Obama, you're not coming? June 5 is a good day to drop in. We're celebrating the 42nd anniversary of the Six-Day War. That's just the time to turn on the light of hope in our tired eyes. And only you can do that, because in Netanyahu's Caesarea mansion and Barak's luxury Tel Aviv apartment, there's no patience for your childish solutions to the conflict, or your illusions about peace.

So, you'll drop by for a cup of coffee?