I think that with Obama, in the first year, his policy was taken from the Arab lobby playbook. The Arab lobby’s premise has always been: If the U.S. will be “even-handed” with Israel, they will have supportive policies that are supportive of America. It’s a complete fallacy. You don’t get your way with the Arabs by beating up on Israel. The Muslim world didn’t become lovers of the U.S. and Obama because he made the mistake of giving the speech in Cairo in 2009. Everyone talks about that speech, but they forget that he stopped in Riyadh on the way to ask for support, and the king told him to jump in the lake. Another point: The Palestinians were perfectly happy to negotiate with Israel without a settlement freeze. Obama’s criticism of Israel alienated most Israelis. And for Israel to make difficult concessions and take risks for peace, they need to feel that America is behind them. Purely in terms of America’s objectives, in terms of what the president was trying to accomplish, it was a total failure. It took him about 18 months to figure it out.
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