Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will ask President Barack Obama Wednesday for “bold decisions” on the Middle East but US-led peace moves face a torrid climate after Israel’s Gaza flotilla raid.

Obama will welcome Abbas to the White House seeking to ensure regional fury over the May 31 Israeli commando strike does not doom indirect Israel-Palestinian talks that took months for Washington to organize.

He will also discuss American efforts to break through a “status-quo” on the blockaded Gaza Strip, which his administration describes as “untenable” following the deadly Israeli maritime raid, which killed nine Turks.

“Bold moves.” Breaking through the Gaza “status quo.” If all of that sounds vague and tentative, some Mideast watchers think that’s because the post-flotilla atmosphere between Israel, the West Bank-only Palestinian Authority and the Obama administration is marked primarily by confusion. Even after the raid, Obama may want Abbas to show an openness to moving beyond the indirect “proximity talks” — whereby George Mitchell, the administration’s envoy for Mideast peace, plays a game of telephone to convey messages between the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Americans — and to direct negotiations. And in this op-ed for The Hill, Abbas loudly proclaims his desire for dialogue — without specifics about the form that dialogue should take. But after the raid, can Abbas really sell his people on the idea of moving more aggressively in the direction of talks with the Israelis?

“I’m not so sure that any of the actors here is exactly sure what they want, or what they can go in expecting,” said Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, an Arab-Israeli conflict specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace who just returned from a trip last week to Israel and the West Bank. “You have that with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, where I don’t think he knows what he wants or what his next move is, I’m not sure the Obama administration does, and I don’t think Abbas does. And partly everyone is hoping the other side is going to come in and provide the solution.” She described the diplomatic climate ahead of Abbas’s visit as “collective breathholding.”

This is the first presidential meeting since the flotilla crisis. Obama will meet with Netanyahu soon after, following a charm offensive by the Obama administration to publicly proclaim Netanyahu as a partner. Obama and Abbas can talk about ways to perhaps get Netanyahu to ease the Gaza siege. But what will Netanyahu say?

Henri Barkey, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Program, had an idea for Israel to turn the diplomatic tables on Hamas for the first time since establishing the Gaza blockade. They can reiterate their call for Hamas to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit; rely on international assurances against Hamas-driven attacks from across the border in Gaza; and then lifting the blockade. “You put this as your condition, and then you put Hamas in the corner,” Barkey said at a morning meeting at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “Because then Hamas will have to decide whether to accept these things, and you completely shift the discourse.”

Speaking of the Israelis, though, Barkey said, “I don’t know why they’re not doing it. To me that’s a no-lose situation, because the onus is on the other side. And then you ask for international guarantees, so you can say that if a rocket gets fired [into Israel] then Hamas will have to live with the consequences internationally.”

Recalling that the annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community, the Quartet underscores that the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties and condemns the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The Quartet re-affirms its intention to closely monitor developments in Jerusalem and to keep under consideration additional steps that may be required to address the situation on the ground.

So much for Jackson Diehl’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” on Jerusalem settlement construction.

A brave quartet then sang three songs to do our country proud. First up, the national anthem:

Next, “America, the Beautiful,” which has never been so beautiful:

And finally, “God Bless America”:

Next came a speech to get people riled up, particularly the Democrats in the crowd. All one of them:

But my short attention span caused me to lose interest in the speaker and focus on a true patriot in the audience:

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An initially thin crowd in Lafayette Square slowly filled out as people ventured out in the rain.

A volunteer men’s quartet with some, uh, minor tuning issues kicked things off with renditions of “The Star Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America.”

This gentleman came all the way from Oregon to demonstrate his frustration with the Fed in front of the White House.

The event was rife with the obligatory communist references, including this shirt purchased from mikechurch.com.

And some Mussolini references too. At least this guy got his first name right.

An event for the whole family.

For everything else, there’s MasterCard.

The opening speaker emphatically declared that the demonstrators were NOT right-wing extremists. This guy begged to differ.

Ah, there’s the tea we’ve been hearing about.

This young man was the only demonstrator I saw calling for Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to be hanged.

Meanwhile, a very different kind of protest was going on across the street.

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