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Is US Middle East policy playing a constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? This question, which ought to have been asked immediately after President Obama’s speech in Cairo in June 2009, is even more poignant following President Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2010. The speech included messages that do not seem helpful to reaching a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The president’s most egregious error was his very decision to place the Israeli-Palestinian issue under the spotlight at this time, devoting a considerable part of his speech to the Israeli-Palestinian question. The president must be aware that such a speech, delivered from such a podium at such a time, would focus international attention on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations currently underway. However, what is most needed for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is for them to take place far from the cameras, spotlights, and microphones. President Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Netanyahu are under tremendous pressure from parties who reject the settlement process; President Obama even spoke directly to this point in his speech. Those parties would carefully examine every verbal expression of the leaders of each side in order to prevent them from advancing towards a settlement.

Abu Mazen is in a particularly delicate position. His authority and leadership are already in question. His ability to withstand pressure and impose his authority on those around him is limited. The leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip are constantly breathing down his neck. They do not hide their position that working towards a settlement with Israel is completely against the national interests of the Palestinian people. Those operating towards a settlement are considered by them as traitors or collaborators with the Zionists. Organizations subordinate to Hamas are not satisfied with negative pronouncements only: they are making every effort to overshadow the negotiations with acts of terrorism that would nip the talks in the bud.

In addition, the Arab League has erected several obstacles for Abu Mazen’s leadership. It has made it difficult for him to work towards a compromise – even though it had given the PA the green light to enter into direct talks with Israel. The position of Amr Musa, the secretary of the Arab League, against recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is a prominent example in this regard. Another is Amr Musa’s insistence that the direct talks with Israel be stopped if the freeze on construction in the Jewish settlements is not renewed.

Under these circumstances, Abu Mazen would certainly not want to put the negotiations he is conducting with Israel under the spotlight at this time. Assuming that he is interested in promoting a settlement with Israel, even if only on his conditions, his supreme interest is to conduct discreet talks – confidential to the extent possible – with Netanyahu’s representatives. Indeed, the media-saturated coverage of his meetings with Netanyahu in Jerusalem does not earn Abu Mazen any points in the Arab street and presumably is not to his liking.

For his part, Prime Minister Netanyahu also finds himself under tremendous internal pressure. His closest confidantes from within his political party are openly threatening to unseat him should he agree to continue the freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria. Senior coalition members, led by Ministers Eli Yishai and Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon, reiterate their unequivocal position that the construction freeze not be renewed beyond this date. If Netanyahu is interested in promoting a settlement, he too would likely prefer that the negotiations assume as low a profile as possible.

In his speech, President Obama called for renewing the freeze on construction in settlements in Judea and Samaria. For several reasons, this demand, coming from the US president at the General Assembly, does not have constructive implications for the negotiations over a settlement.

First, this demand is unrealistic. The prime minister has already stated unequivocally that there would be no further freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria. In saying that “between zero and one” there are many possibilities, he suggested that he is prepared for some sort of compromise. But it is also clear that he is incapable of agreeing to reinstate the freeze that was in place. Accepting such a demand would greatly damage his credibility, both among the Palestinians and in the international community.

Second, should Netanyahu find himself under overwhelming pressure from the administration and the European Union and ultimately accept the demand to freeze construction in the Jewish settlements along the same parameters that were in place, there may well be some sort of upheaval within the coalition. This would almost certainly force new elections. Such a process would delay the negotiations for a long time.

Third, should the Netanyahu government reject President Obama’s demand, the president’s status would suffer in the eyes of the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular. Since he assumed office, the Palestinians have pinned their hopes on his enabling them to achieve their aims without having to make substantial concessions in exchange. Should construction be renewed in Judea and Samaria, even if limited in scope, Palestinian doubts about Obama’s ability to deliver the goods for them will only grow.

Fourth, the demand for a construction freeze in the Jewish settlements makes it impossible in practice for the Palestinians to show some flexibility in their stance on the issue. It is clear that the Palestinians will not be more moderate in their demands of Israel than President Obama. Should they indeed, as threatened, withdraw from the talks, the recently created momentum will most likely end for a considerable period of time.

Finally, this demand further undermines the credibility of the Obama administration in the eyes of Israel’s leadership. This credibility was already damaged by the unwillingness of the administration to recognize the understandings reached between Israel and the Bush administration. It would be further undermined if understandings arrived at with the new administration become irrelevant at critical moments. Israeli leaders would certainly ask themselves: what is the point of arriving at understandings with the administration if it reneges on them in such a blatant manner at critical moments?

At the same time, it should be emphasized that President Obama’s speech included very decisive and supportive words for the State of Israel and America’s commitment to maintain its security. For President Obama’s administration this is not a matter of rhetoric alone. The relationship between Israel and the United States at the security-strategic level has apparently reached an unprecedented closeness under the Obama administration. Furthermore, the president’s speech included harsh words for the terrorism employed by Palestinian organizations against Israel. The president also demanded that the Arab states implement normalization processes with Israel in the spirit of the Arab peace initiative.

Nonetheless, a thorough examination of the speech leaves the impression that the most concrete demand pointed towards Israel and the Netanyahu government, i.e., continuing the construction freeze. Among the tributes to the Palestinian leadership, the president did not see fit to make any concrete demands such as those he made of Israel. The result is that within many circles in Israel, especially at the level of the country’s leadership, the sense is that the president is taking an unbalanced stance at Israel’s expense in everything having to do with the Palestinians. This explains a lack of sympathy for President Obama in many quarters of the Israeli public. The Obama administration is well aware of this and is worried about it. The president’s advisors have repeatedly made it clear that without a high degree of trust and support from the Israeli public for the administration and the president it will be very difficult indeed to make any progress in the peace process.

The problem is that this awareness has yet to be translated by the president into action in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. President Obama’s speech at the United Nations is another example of just that.