According to Ha’aretz, the gift Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bringing to the White House for President Obama is a copy of “Pleasure Excursion to the Holy Land,” from Mark Twain’s book “The Innocents Abroad.”

Twain’s recollections of his post Civil War tour of the Mediterranean are an apt subject of reflection for Obama as he attempts to force Netanyahu to accept a Palestinian state. The Palestine Twain visited was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire whose inhabitants had no sense of a separate national identity.  Though Palestinian nationalism is a reality that Israel must contend with today, it originated and gained traction solely as a reaction to the return of large numbers of Jews to the country. And this is the problem with making a peace deal with the Palestinians and the reason they have turned down every chance for peace so far. Since their national identity is wholly bound up with negating Zionism, the two-state solution everybody in Europe and Washington believes will bring peace doesn’t appeal that much to them.

On the other hand, I wonder what Bibi will get from Obama. For his sake, let’s hope it’s better than that terrible collection of DVDs the president gave to Gordon Brown.