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Article 2. NY Daily News President Obama has right goals on Israeli- Palestinian peace, but strategy already backfiring Alan Dershowitz May 27th 2011 -- Now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back in Israel and President Obama is traveling around Europe, it is time to assess the effect their dueling speeches have had on the prospects for peace. There is one factual conclusion on which the Israelis and the Palestinians completely agree: following President Obama's recent speech — and repeated explanation of it — on the Israel-Palestine conflict, we are further than ever from peace negotiations. Obama has managed, in one fell swoop, to harden the positions of both sides and to create distrust of him by Israelis and Palestinians alike. My criticism of the President is not directed at whether he is pro- Israel or anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian or anti-Palestinian. In fact, I believe that his actions have not been motivated by any antagonism toward the Jewish state. He simply does not understand the dynamics of Middle East negotiation. I am disappointed in him not because I support Israel (which I do), but because I support peace based on a two-state solution. I agree with Obama about his ends, while disagreeing about his means. Indeed there is little in the content of the President's statements with which I disagree. Rather, it is with his negotiating strategy, his constant need to explain himself, and his utter tone-deafness to the music, as distinguished from the lyrics. The President has asked the Israelis to agree to negotiate new borders based on the 1967 lines, with land swaps. But he did so without asking the Palestinians to agree to drop their demand that millions of HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030272