"Help me!"

"... Britain, France and Germany are pressing to take the "Middle East Peace Process" file out of the White House, where it has gathered dust for the past decade. If they succeed, they might be doing Mr Obama a favour because domestic politics in the US essentially prevent him from doing what he knows needs to be done to forge a two-state solution...

Domestic political calculations last month forced the administration to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate halt to Israeli settlement construction on land conquered in 1967. But that veto, which isolated Washington from all of its allies except Israel, was also a moment of clarity: if domestic political calculations require that the US veto a Security Council resolution echoing its own policy on settlements, what hope was there for Washington to broker a just and viable solution to the conflict?

The administration's key European allies are now urging that the April 15 meeting of the Mideast Quartet formally state the international consensus that the geographic basis for a two-state solution is Israel's boundaries before the June 1967 war. By recognising Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the basis of a Palestinian state, the Quartet would be affirming that any territory Israel occupies outside of its 1967 borders is the Palestinians' (and in the case of the Golan Heights, Syria's) to trade away as they see fit, rather than Israel's to "concede"...

No amount of diplomatic consensus can change the fact that Israel holds those territories, but it will affirm that it holds them by force of arms rather than on the basis of any legal recognition. And that undercuts the Israelis' expectation that their overwhelming advantage in the balance of force with the Palestinians, and the favour they enjoy in US domestic politics, will somehow compel the Palestinians - and with Washington's imprimatur, the wider world - to accept Israel's terms....

None of Israel's closest allies beside the US believe any longer that Mr Netanyahu intends of his own volition, to end the occupation or offer peace terms acceptable to the Palestinians. The new consensus is that Israel will have to be pressed into a deal, the parameters of which will have to be prescribed...... through its failure to press Mr Netanyahu to halt construction on occupied territory, the administration showed the Palestinians and everyone else that no progress towards a two-state solution should be expected if the matter is left in Washington's hands. Mr Obama couldn't have signalled more clearly what was required in respect of the stalled peace process if he had silently mouthed "Help me!" during a White House press conference.

Of course, the Israelis and their supporters in Washington will urge Mr Obama to reject any moves by the Quartet or the UN to codify the 1967 lines as a basis for a two-state solution. But most of those who had, with increasing alarm, accepted Washington's exclusive handling of the issue may now be taking Mr Obama's praise of Libya multilateralism as a cue to internationalise the search for a two-state solution in the Middle East's most intractable conflict. After all, Mr Obama made clear, that's "how the international community should work".