Obama moved against Israeli settlements without regard for Israeli public opinion and while at the same time making grand gestures to the Arab world. The result, as has been pointed out here several times, is that Obama has lost his best leverage in dealing with Bibi: Israeli public opinion. A vast majority of Israelis are convinced that Obama is no friend of Israel, which allows Netanyahu to disregard Obama's demands for a settlement freeze and even risk a standoff between his administration and Obama's with little fear that the public will blame him for the crisis.
Eric Fingerhut points to two pieces in the Israeli press that make a similar point. One is by Shmuel Rosner, who writes in the Jerusalem Post that there are only two explanations for Obama's mishandling of the issue:
1. The Obama administration doesn't understand Israeli politics, and doesn't recognize that its public policies - while possibly helpful with the Arab world - can hardly make Israelis feel secure and ready to cooperate with the President, no matter how often he says that his commitment to Israel's security is unshakable.
2. The Obama administration doesn't care about Israeli politics and Israeli public opinion, and is ready to sacrifice the good will of Israelis in exchange for (presumed) better relations with the Arab world.
Surprise: the Arab-Israeli conflict won't be solved by the force of Obama's personality alone. Whatever good Obama's done on the Arab side of the ledger, and I do think it can be reasonably argued that Obama's Cairo speech had some effect on the election in Lebanon and the protests in Tehran, seems to have come at the cost of relations with the Israelis -- whose support is obviously just as vital to any serious peace processing. That Rosner could have come to the conclusion that this binary choice offers the only plausible explanation for Obama's behavior does not bode well for anyone, least of all the pro-Palestinian left that's so desperate to see Obama successfully push the Israelis toward making tough concessions.
