Department of Silver Linings

America in the Middle East Edition:

The potential silver lining amid these bleak scenarios [regarding Israel and its enemies] is that Clinton, and by extension Obama, would have a George Shultz experience.

Some may remember the fear in the pro-Israel community when Shultz, then an executive at the Bechtel Corporation, was named to his post by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. But by the time he left the State Department in 1989, he was considered one of Israel's great supporters. What seemed to put him in that camp was having been thwarted and lied to repeatedly by Yasir Arafat and other Arab leaders in repeated negotiations.

So there is the hope that as the U.S. engages Syria and Iran in talks, it will become evident that neither is sincere about compromise or equitable alternatives to confrontation.

The fact that the new Obama administration engaged in preliminary talks on the Durban II conference and then pulled out after recognizing that the meeting promises to be a sham and disgrace in its anti-Israel agenda, is a positive and hopeful sign.