By Ahmed Amr – Cairo

Rumor has it that the Micronesian President resorted to heavy handed arm twisting to convince Obama to vote against the Palestinians at the United Nations. While publicly denying the rumors, White House insiders are being evasive about the bruises on the President’s arms. All we know for certain is that Obama hasn’t been seen in a t-shirt since his Tete a Tete with the Micronesian Goliath. For the linguistically challenged, “Tete a Tete” is French for head butting.

Aside from resorting to undiplomatic physical assaults on Obama, the Micronesian President reportedly threatened to take Obama’s face off the country’s 25 cent stamp and put it on a 10 cent stamp. Alarmed stamp collectors around the world flooded the White House switchboard and threatened a March on Washington.

As if the Micronesian pressure wasn’t enough, the Republic of Palau’s entire population of 21,000 threatened a twenty minute hunger strike if the United States did not vote against the Palestinians.  This was no idle threat. Palau’s history of confronting threats to its national sovereignty is legend in somebody’s mind –  I believe it’s somebody in Micronesia but I could be wrong.

In his speech before the United Nation, the Palaun ambassador thundered “We already have a PAL country in the UN – PALau – why does the world need two PAL countries – it will only confuse me and my Micronesian friends. PALau is the best PAL country the UN will ever have. If my country is not on the map, why should we grant that privilege to the Palestinians?” The ambassador went on to warn the Palestinians that observer status did not entitle them to contest his country’s ownership of the Dot.PAL franchise. Last seen, Palau’s navy was heading for the eastern Mediterranean to confront the intransigent Palestinians.

Even under intense pressure from Micronesia and Palau, the president was still weighing his strategic options until hours before the UN vote.  But then Obama got his 3.00 AM call from Hillary. For reasons of national security, what went down in that exchange must be reserved for the history books. Let’s just say it was Obama’s Berlin moment. The Marshall Islands was now on board with Micronesia and Palau. It was a straight forward ultimatum – “You’re either with us or against us. Vote against the Palestinians or we shall rename our country the Marshall Tito Islands or maybe just Tito or maybe Ti or even To. Let’s see how that goes down with the folks at Google Map.”

It’s not easy being president. It’s an awesome burden for a man like Obama – a man with lofty ideals who is constantly being manhandled by foreign leaders with hidden agendas. Walk a mile in his shoes and you will know what it means to withstand pressure from Nauru (that’s a real country – look it up.)

An insider familiar with Obama’s sleeping habits recently revealed that when Nauru takes an uncompromising stand at the United Nations, the president is usually wearing yellow pajamas.  It’s an uncanny phenomenon and it could be a mere coincidence. But then again, to paraphrase Rumsfeld, we don’t know what no one give a damn about and that should most certainly factor into our strategic thinking about how to maintain and enhance our relationship with Nauru – which is another good reason to vote against the Palestinians – if only to be on the safe side of Micronesia and Palau and some other country I mentioned earlier but can’t seem to recall.

Fortunately for the president, other foreign policy decisions are easy to make. It doesn’t matter what color pajama Obama is wearing when Netanyahu calls, the president knows the right time to be decisively yellow.

-Ahmed Amr is the former editor of NileMedia.com and the author of “The Sheep and the Guardians”. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.