For him, the wrong American

WITH polls in Israel ten weeks away, Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party fears the influence on Israeli voters of a resurgent Barack Obama back in the White House. “Say Obama appointed Bill Clinton his Middle East peace envoy before the Israeli election,” mused a seasoned observer. A fresh effort by Mr Obama to revive the moribund peace process might well stir even worse blood between Washington and Jerusalem if in January Mr Netanyahu were also returned to office.

Messrs Obama and Netanyahu were at odds virtually throughout the president’s first term. Their relations were often sour. Mr Netanyahu uninhibitedly hoped his old friend Mitt Romney would win the American presidency. Both men have been lavishly backed by Sheldon Adelson, a Jewish-American casino magnate who promotes Israel’s hawks and settlers.

Mr Obama’s victory also presents a moment of truth for Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, respectively prime minister and foreign minister in the previous Israeli government (2006-09). They have been pondering separately and together whether to lead the challenge against Mr Netanyahu in the coming election or sit it out on the sidelines. Mr Olmert, though acquitted recently of most charges in a corruption trial, is still facing an appeal by the state prosecutor and is still embroiled in a separate bribery case. Ms Livni was defeated earlier this year as leader of the Kadima party, which won the last election but failed to form a ruling coalition.

If one or both of them take the plunge, the campaign will focus to a much greater degree than at present on the frozen peace process. Mr Netanyahu has steered clear of it, preferring to dwell on Iran’s perceived nuclear threat and his determination to thwart it, by military means if need be. The Labour party, second in the opinion polls behind the Likud, has preferred to campaign on the economy rather than peace with the Palestinians.

This lacuna at the heart of Israeli politics was starkly highlighted on November 1st, when Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said on Israeli television that he considered he had a right to visit his hometown, Safed, in northern Israel, but not to live there. He was immediately accused by fellow Palestinians of forgoing their hallowed “right of return”—to live in any part of the former Palestine mandate in what is now Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, ruled by the fundamentalist Hamas movement, Mr Abbas’s image was burned on the streets in angry demonstrations. He nevertheless repeated the substance of his remarks on Egyptian television, spelling out again that a Palestinian state would arise on the West Bank and Gaza, but not in Israel as internationally defined before the war of 1967.

Mr Netanyahu dismissed the Palestinian leader’s remarks as disingenuous. But Mr Olmert and Ms Livni, as well as Israel’s president and former prime minister, Shimon Peres, issued statements praising them. “Whoever is interested in preserving a secure Jewish and democratic state, should embrace this interview,” Ms Livni urged. “But peace has been turned into a dirty word…We must work together to bring down Netanyahu.”

If only I had lasted longer…

Mr Olmert accused the prime minister of “trying to prove to the Israeli public that there is no partner on the Palestinian side,” which, he said, was demonstrably untrue. Messrs Olmert and Abbas have both said they might well have won a comprehensive peace agreement, had Mr Olmert been able to stay in office two or three months longer; he was forced to quit amid corruption allegations. Their discussions were based on accepting the 1967 borders with adjustments and minor land swaps to accommodate the biggest Jewish settlement blocks on the West Bank. The ancient heart of Jerusalem and its holy places were to be administered by an international regime. Mr Netanyahu has always refused to reopen negotiations with Mr Abbas on such a basis.

If Mr Netanyahu, like Mr Obama, retains his post, as is widely predicted, some foresee the revival of an old idea to link a deal with the Palestinians to one with Iran: the Americans would increase their pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear plans while insisting more forcefully, as a quid pro quo, that Israel stops stalling on its talks with the Palestinians. Mr Netanyahu might not like that either. But he might have to go along with it.