A Daily Analysis
By Marc Schulman

June 10, 2009 The Mitchell Visit and Netanyahu Prepares For Speech

President Obama’s Middle East representative, Senator Mitchell arrived in Israel. While most Israeli observers were concerned that Mitchell was coming to put more public pressure on Israel, by the time he arrived his mission had changed to one of reassurance. According to observers after Netanyahu's call with Obama (in which Netanyahu told Obama about his upcoming speech), the American administration believes the Netanyahu administration finally understands that it was going to have to get on board.

Netanyahu is meeting with Likud Knesset members in preparation for his speech on Sunday. It is unclear how far he is going to go. However, most people expect him to accept the two-state solution with reservation and announce some limitation to settlement building. There is some talk about Netanyahu having to reshuffle his coalition and include Kadima. Other observers believe Netanyahu is trying to get Mofaz to split from Kadima and join the government.