There’s a certain degree of symbolism in that today [April 29] the Obama administration is launching discussions with the Arab League on renewing negotiations to end the conflict in the Middle East — exactly one day before the 10th anniversary of the Road Map [President Bush's peace initiative]. The central challenge for the sides is to find terms of reference that bypass the more difficult obstacles which they each pose: on the Palestinian side, the demand that Israel agree to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borderlines (with mutual exchanges of land) and that it recognize a Palestinian state; on the Israeli side — the demand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, alongside a Palestinian state.

The obvious solution is for the sides to negotiate based on the exact wording of the Road Map (UN Resolution 1515) and/or the Annapolis Declaration (Nov. 27, 2007). Since the author of both these initiatives (including a complete freeze on construction in the settlements) is “one of their own” presidents, the Republicans will be hard-pressed to present them as anti-Israeli and to place obstacles in their way on Capitol Hill. The Arab Peace Initiative, also born during the Bush administration, awaits President Barack Obama. On the other hand, it’s not clear whether Obama is so keen. And this is where Grover Norquist comes in.

The conservative lobbyist's reputation rests on being a leading long-time opponent of any president who expresses any intent of raising taxes, or even hints at one. Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), managed to obtain the signatures of virtually all Republican members of the US House of Representatives (236 of them) on a public commitment to fight against any sort of tax increase and to vote against it. By the way, the handful of representatives who refused to sign might have to pay with their seats in the next Congress. The name of the strongman from Washington came up recently when he led the hardest line in negotiations between the Republican majority in the House and the Obama administration over a bipartisan formula of economic reform sought by the president to save the United States from the “fiscal cliff.” On the other hand, as far as negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians, Obama might have found in Norquist and his friends loyal allies for a peace initiative. That's a certainty.

I got to know Grover Norquist and his wife, Samah Alrayyes, well some five years ago. The couple hosted a party at their home to launch “Lords of the Land,” a book I had written with professor Idith Zertal about Israel’s settlement policy. Mrs. Norquist told me that she was the daughter of Muslim Palestinian refugees who had landed in Kuwait. She also spoke of her longtime activity for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel and about the girl from Bethlehem they had decided to adopt. By the way, Norquist himself supported the construction of an Islamic culture center on Ground Zero.