In their reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, Palestinians and Arabs have unanimously rejected his conditions for a two-state solution.

In a major political speech, Netanyahu said Israel would accept the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state only if Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The total rejection of Netanyahu’s ideas by the Palestinians and Arabs is a start — but it is not enough.

This is simply because there is a question on every Arab’s mind: what next?

In its previous sponsorship of negotiations, the U.S. only pressured the Palestinian side to change its stand and make more concessions.

This leads to another question: Are the Palestinians and Arabs going to bet on the United States, as a mediator, being able to convince Netanyahu to change his stance?

It is a fact that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is on U.S. President Barack Obama’s list of priorities, which was not the case with the former U.S. administration, which handled the issue by ignoring and sidelining it.

Yet the Obama administration’s first and last mission is to serve American interests, which historically oscillate between support for Israel and the U.S. role in the Arab region.

With regard to the U.S. position towards the Arab-Israeli struggle, there are three possibilities.

The first possibility is that there could be a radical change in the American stance and a possible clash with the Israelis. It is wishful thinking that, in this region of the world, the American position could be based only on justice and a people’s right to freedom.

In my opinion, support for this perception is unfounded. Such a stance would never become a reality unless it was dictated by U.S. interests.

The second possibility is the exact opposite. There could be no change in the U.S. policy towards Israel. People who subscribe to this view do not take Obama’s administration seriously and consider its stand as being unchanged from that of previous administrations.

In other words, they believe Obama will pay temporary attention to the Palestinian plight and then drop the matter as a result of Israeli pressure.

This was the case with former U.S.administrations, which only showed interest in the Palestinian cause in their last year in office, in an attempt to secure a legacy.

The third option is the one that Arab governments and the Palestine National Authority always take. It is to hope that the U.S. administration becomes an honest mediator and a neutral party, facilitating Arab-Israeli negotiations without taking a stand, and without siding with one party against the other.

In this scenario, the problem lies with the official stance of the Arabs and Palestinians. Asking the U.S. to be neutral means that negotiations will unfold according to the balance of power between the negotiators.

Here one may ask: What cards do the Palestinians and Arabs hold that can tip the scales in their favor?

Israel is the greatest military power in the Middle East, with air, sea and technological superiority as well as nuclear weapons.

Israel also occupies Arab lands, builds colonies, starts destructive wars and refuses to implement United Nations resolutions related to the Palestinian rights to land, return of refugees, and an independent state.

On the other side, Arabs are divided, and the Palestinian negotiators ceded the advantage under the Oslo Accords by recognizing Israel’s right to exist without any Israeli recognition of Palestinian rights.

Furthermore, the Palestinians not only undertook to give up the armed resistance against occupation, but to combat those who refuse to do so.

The negotiating Arab side accepted the divisions in the Arab front and gave up responsibility for the Palestinian cause.

Therefore, if the U.S. is to be fair and neutral, the Palestinians and Arabs must change their three-decade-old method of negotiation.

The negotiating power of the Palestinians and Arabs is not currently strong enough to put pressure on Israel, the Europeans or the Americans. There is an Israeli-American-European plan to stop all forms of armed resistance against the Israeli occupation and to put more pressure on Arab countries to normalize their relations with Israel.

In both cases, Arabs will lose any strong bargaining position and Israel will set conditions while others must make concessions.

What is required to counter this is Palestinian unity on both negotiations and resistance. On the Arab front, the minimum requirement in dealing with Netanyahu’s terms and Obama’s unclear position would be rejecting any form of recognition of Israel or normalization of ties before the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

It is worth mentioning that the Obama administration may have welcomed Netanyahu’s speech as “an important step forward” in order to win Israel’s approval for a two-state solution. This could pave the way for the U.S. administration to call for an international conference.

Negotiations for a peace settlement could commence after Arab countries such as Syria and Lebanon sign treaties and establish relations with Israel.

During the peace conference, the U.S. would demand that Israel freeze all colony-building activities and improve the social and humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people, as well as support the Palestinian National Authority’s role in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

These demands would have to be achieved within a given timeframe, during which the outcomes of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations would be subject to developments on the ground.

Sobhi Ghandour is the director of the Al Hewar Center in Washington. Reprinted from the Gulf News, June 23, 2009