A major test for Obama

As if the incoming President had nothing else to do - like getting America back to work,trying to resolve the financial mess etc - he has one massive foreign policy challenge ahead of him and it's called Palestine.

The issue that George Bush chose to put on the back-burner is something which Obama desperately needs to bring to the front of America's foreign policy agenda. Why? Because America has the power and influence to broker some kind of an urgently needed deal to get Israeli - Palestinian negotiations back on track.

The situation which escalated this week has hideous possibilities. Given the hatred that exists between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, it was always a massive uphill climb to hope for a lasting peace, but when Hamas won the elections in Gaza in 2006 that situation took an even more sinister turn. The Israelis are having to deal with two Palestinian governments which don't trust each other and both hate Israel.



While Israel is prepared to deal with the Palestinian Authority in the west bank it will not deal with Hamas in Gaza, regarding the organisation as terrorist and not to be recognised. Fair enough, some may say, given that Hamas has declared that Israel has no right to exist - but perhaps Israel should look back to the late 1940s when its own freedom organisations were regarded by the British in exactly the same light.

There is a lot to be said about wording. Hamas has said it does not recognise Israel's right to exist. That could be a long way from a vow to destroy the Israeli state. However reluctant Israel may be to deal with these Gaza 'terrorists' maybe they have to swallow their own vomit and get round the table.



Certainly what has happened this week cannot be allowed to continue. Hamas has continued to provoke the Israelis, firing 80 rockets a day into the country and randomly killing its citizens. No nation on earth is going to put up with that. But Hamas knows that when Israel strikes back it does so with a vengeance. Hamas is surely inviting Israel to commit to a ground war which, even if it 'wins' (whatever winning means in this context) the international condemnation will be so great that Hamas will have won a diplomatic victory.

This is where, I believe, the new American government can play a strong leading diplomatic role. Obama has a lot of good will and credibility going for him at the moment and maybe he can rescue America from some of the opprobrium surrounding the Bush legacy by making this issue of the Palestine -Israeli conflict a primary one. America must try its best to persuade Israel to sit down with both Hamas and the Palestine Authority and it must, I believe, commit diplomatic resources to spurring on such a coming together and more to be a key player in hammering out the basis of a new independent Palestinian state.

It's not going to be easy, far from it. It is going to be a major diplomatic headache, maybe for some years to come. But I believe America is best placed to exert pressure and influence on both parties and to come through with the kind of diplomacy which used to be an American by-word.

During the invasion of Iraq, one cynical US military chief said 'We don't DO nation building'. Well I believe that's exactly what America has to try and do as a top priority, with European help. If not and these fierce adversaries are just left to go the way Gaza has gone this week, the middle east will soon be another bloody inferno and it will be too late to do anything about it.