Israelis, Palestinians and U.S. mediators are scrambling to find a compromise that would allow the collapsing Mideast talks to continue after an Israeli settlement slowdown expires at midnight.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already stated that the 10-month-old moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank will not be extended, despite pleas from President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) to do so. The Palestinians have warned that if the slowdown ends, they will quit the talks.

If the sides fail to strike a compromise, the midnight end of the building restrictions will signal the end of the Mideast peace talks that began at the White House less than a month ago.

Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, and defense minister, Ehud Barak, were traveling from the U.S. to Israel this morning after attempting to reach a compromise with American and Palestinian representatives.

However, the chief negotiators, Saeb Erekat for the Palestinians and Yitzhak Molcho for the Israelis, stayed behind  in the U.S., keeping a slim hope alive for a last-minute agreement.

Israeli settlers and their supporters are pressuring Netanyahu to keep an explicit promise he made to resume construction in Israel’s West Bank settlements. Several thousand settlers are expected todayat a rally to count down the hours to the midnight deadline.

Faced with heavy pressure from the Palestinians and their allies, the Obama administration, to back down, Israel’s government was keeping its mouth shut as the deadline approached. Netanyahu told his Cabinet ministers not to speak to the media about the crisis Sunday, according to Israeli officials, and even the prime minister’s spokesman refused to comment.

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that:

Israel must choose between peace and the continuation of settlement.

According to Abbas, the Palestinians and the Middle East are continuously pushed into “the corner of violence and conflict” as a result of Israel’s “mentality of expansion and domination.”

Uh Huh.  It’s never the Palestinians’ fault.  Just like it’s never Obama’s fault.  Hmmmm.

But, afraid of being blamed if the talks collapse, Abbas told a group of American Jewish leaders last week that he would not necessarily walk away from the negotiations even if settlement construction resumes. And senior Palestinian officials have said they are willing to show “some flexibility.”

Weasel.

Netanyahu, for his part, has said Israel would not necessarily resume construction in full.

The Palestinians oppose all Israeli construction in the West Bank, saying it cripples plans for a viable Palestinian state.  Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

Israel rejects preconditions to negotiations, saying settlements should be discussed in the talks.

Abbas has problems back home.  He has to deal with his rivals from the Islamist Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip and rejects any recognition of Israel. Abbas “should withdraw immediately from the negotiations” and concentrate on unifying Palestinians to fight Israel, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told the AP in Gaza.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, faces heavy pressure within his pro-settler governing coalition to resume construction. Hardline elements could try to bring down the government if Netanyahu extends the settlement slowdown.

In reality, the slowdown has brought about only a slight drop of about 10 percent in ongoing construction in the settlements. On the other hand, it has significantly cut new housing starts — by about 50 percent, according to the dovish Israeli group Peace Now.

Israeli Cabinet minister Limor Livnat told Israel Radio on Saturday that around 2,000 homes can begin construction immediately once the slowdown ends.

Obama, Hillary, and the rest of the Smart Power Super Friends have 2 chances, at this point, of reaching a settlement between Israel and the ever-internally-squabbling Palestinians:  slim and none.

In their self-delusional quest to proclaim themselves the smartest American administration evah, they severely overestimated their foreign policy expertise.  Obama’s only prior experience with something even remotely resembling this situation would have been settling disputes between street gangs as a community organizer in Chicago.

Why is the government of the United States backing a bunch of barbarians that hate us and each other, and teaming up with them against one of our closest allies?  Israel is a nation which is pivotal in the faith of  over 75 % of Americans.  America was founded on a Judeo-Christian belief system.  This boneheaded foreign policy initiative is as naive as Obama’s wish to sit across the negotiating table from that barbarian, Ahmadinejad.  Didn’t Carter try something like this?  The only thing that came out of his Middle East Peace Initiative was the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

I still say that, evidently, Rev. Jeremiah Wright never discussed Genesis 12: 1 – 3 in his church.  If he did, Scooter slept through it:

 ¹Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

And he wonders why his presidency is failing…