A discussion on the Durban II anti-racism conference.

1. A reminder, comrades: Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States of America. Since his Cairo address this simple fact seems to have been overlooked by some commentators who make their living off the Palestine/Israel matrix. Step back for a moment from his Cairo address to remember that despite his name, his parentage and his half-white color - by virtue of being the US president, all of Obama's words and actions will by definition always be quintessentially "mainstream."

"The founding and development of the State of Israel is one of the greatest success stories of mankind in the 20th century, and any flaws along the way or in the final analysis can in no way detract from this enormous achievement."

This rather emphatic statement was the contribution of Amos Schocken, editor of the prestigious and liberal Israeli daily, Ha-aretz, to a panel discussion marking the 61st anniversary of state. This view was common to most of the participants in the discussion – and, probably, to the vast majority of the liberal Israeli public.

Recently an extraordinary ceremony took place in California. Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger returned to the heirs of the Oppenheimer family of Berlin two 16th century oil paintings that had ended up in a museum in California.

Jacob Oppenheimer, the owner of a gallery in Berlin, the city of my birth, was forced to “sell” his art collection in return for a “mess of pottage” in order to flee from Nazi Germany. He found refuge in another European state and after the outbreak of the Second World War he was caught by the Nazis and murdered. Today all will agree that the sale was not based on the free will of the seller in a way that is acceptable in a democratic state, but rather was imposed on him under circumstances that rendered the “sale” a form of plunder, and therefore it is just that the paintings should be given back to the heirs, Oppenheimer’s grandchildren. Justice was done after 74 years. A little late. That is what is meant by the adage “better late than never”.

The dovish Ha’aretz is busily engaged in advancing the thesis that Obama and Netanyahu are on a collision course. Last week, it published a (hitherto unconfirmed) scoop that Obama is to visit Israel at the beginning of June. It also reported an intensive ongoing campaign by Obama’s people in DC to prepare Congress for confrontation with a recalcitrant Israeli government.