Given Obama's clearly expressed sympathies for the Palestinians, his demonstrated willingness to brutally coerce the Israelis, and his well-advertised strategic Middle East agenda -- that of smoothing stormy Iraqi, Afghani and Iranian waters by pouring over them the oil of appeasement, what should Israel expect from the US-forced negotiations with Palestinians other than the pressure to give in, to offer debilitating, strategic concessions in return perhaps for a few "guarantees" of doubtful utility and of short duration?

Clearly, to negotiate under the aegis of Obama's hostile administration would be to the strategic detriment of Israel -- and to the detriment of the US and the entire free world.

So far, these dangerous, coersive negotiations did not yet materialize -- because Obama, in his utter ignorance of the problem he was trying to solve, got himself up the tree by demanding the freeze of all Jewish construction in the West bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians immediately echoed his demand, making its fulfillment a prerequisite for any further negotiations -- after waiting for Israel's Obama-demanded (but theoretically, self-imposed) 10-months-long freeze to end. Net result -- Obama cannot dictate his terms of the "negotiated" settlement to Israel because Palestinians refuse to negotiate.

So far so good -- Obama, whose combination of utter ignorance and the know-it-all arrogance makes him so dangerous -- is up the tree and cannot do much harm.

But there is grim news out of Israel:

Anti-Defamation League national director Abe Foxman, who met Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday, said there were "very serious efforts on the American and the Israeli side to find the vehicle to go back to direct talks. Foxman said his impression was that this vehicle would be found before the US elections.

This is outright bizarre. Why would Netanyahu be helping Obama to get down from the tree he has scurried up? Did the latest, pre-election White house round of blandishments erase from Netanyahu's memory his humiliating, high-handed and off-handed treatment by Obama in March? Does he crave further pressure? Or did he see Obama's light, and is now also convinced that all that Palestinians strive to, is to live in peace, side by side with Israel?

I don't know what happened, but this is not good. Obama is no friend of Israel by any stretch of the imagination, and the best and safest place for him in the Arab-Israeli conflict is where he is now -- up the tree. It is not Netanyahu's business to help him get down.

For if Obama is back in action, the consequences for Israel -- and for the world -- may be catastrophic.