Israeli chutzpah or Barack Obama’s audacity of hope?

So what’s it going to be: Israeli chutzpah or Barack Obama’s audacity of hope?

Predictably, Israel’s Netanyahu has lost no time in trashing President Barack Obama’s call for a “viable Palestine” along the 1967 borders. The Israeli PM has virtually rubbed Obama’s nose in, dismissing the borders that existed between Israel and its Arab neighbors before the war in 1967 as “indefensible.”

Well, nothing new here. The more things change around it, the more they remain the same for the ever-irrepressible and intransigent State of Israel. No matter who is in charge, Israeli’s obstinacy remains constant. Interestingly, Netanyahu’s rejection of the reasonable appeal from Israel’s most trusted ally comes hours before his high-profile US visit.

The Israeli leader can certainly count on a red carpet welcome and a firm handshake at the White House and endless, almost obsequious applause at the joint session of Congress that he is scheduled to address. And after all this adulation and glorification, a smug Netanyahu will go home once again, having successfully shrugged off Obama’s diffident attempts to introduce a semblance of balance in US engagement with the Middle East.

And, of course, the status quo will continue with the Palestinians forever stuck in the hell that is their existence and their plight radicalizing generations of Arabs and Muslims. Meanwhile, the yawning gulf between the West and Arab-Islamic world on account of Israel will further expand as the US fights disastrous, trillion-dollar wars in Muslim lands.

It doesn’t have to end this way. Obama’s State Department speech on Thursday has been widely welcomed around the world, although skepticism and open derision greeted it in the Middle East, the region that matters the most. Which is hardly surprising. After all, all those fine speeches by this US leader — or by his numerous predecessors for that matter — haven’t led us anywhere.

Israel continues to get away with murder, even as it refuses to give up the Palestinian and Arab lands it has occupied after every successive war of aggression. For seven decades, the world has watched in helplessness or indifference as an indigenous people are imprisoned and tormented in their own land. And the credit for this affairs goes to the West, especially its leader. Things wouldn’t have come this far without America’s blind and unquestioning support to Israel and its apathy to Israeli crimes against Palestinian people. Again, things on this front will change only if the US is serious and willing to deliver on its peace rhetoric and makes Israel fall in line.

There is only one and simple way of judging Obama’s sincerity and commitment to peace in the Middle East: action. It is time to qualify and follow up all that grandiloquence with real and concrete results on the ground. After all, the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating.

Israel’s intransigence using its powerful friends in high places and fabled clout in the US establishment to have its way is unsurprising. The question is, how the US leadership deals with the obstinacy of its so-called ally and friend. We cannot believe that the reigning superpower is incapable of asserting itself vis-à-vis a rogue regime that survives on its aid and constant protection, if it puts its mind to it. It’s about time the world community put its foot down and tell Israel: Enough is enough and it’s time to behave. So what’s it going to be? Israel’s chutzpah or Obama’s audacity of hope?