The case for Obama's weakness that the GOP won't use

As count-the-accomplishments plaudits for President Obama mount in this election year, it's disturbing to read Peter Beinert's account of Obama knuckling under to Netanyahu (adapted from his forthcoming The Crisis of Zionism).

The outlines were clear enough in contemporary accounts. The administration called for a settlement freeze and settled for the semblance of one. As the "freeze's" short term approached its end, the administration tried desperately to bribe the Israelis into an extension, and failed.  The never-really-started peace talks ended, and an Israeli-Palestinian settlement effectively disappeared from the agenda.  Now Israel's got the U.S. and the world riveted on the alleged "existential" threat from Iran.

At this point, Obama is hemmed in, thanks in large part to the disloyal opposition screaming at every juncture that can be no daylight between Israeli interests as defined by the Netanyahu government and American interests (as defined by the Netanyahu government).  Beinert's point is that it was not always that way.  At the outset, the Obama administration had the leverage to make its conditions stick. Or at least to have made a good-faith effort, which they failed to do:

Netanyahu: I will go to Ramallah....

No one knows Benjamin Netanyahu's heart and ultimate intentions regarding peace negotiations with he Palestinians at this point. In the wake of his meeting with Obama, however, Netanyahu, while intimating that he will not extend the West Bank settlement freeze when it expires in late September, has ramped up his verbal commitment to a comprehensive two-state peace agreement.  Speaking yesterday to Larry King, he at least faintly echoed of Anwar Sadat's "I will go to Jerusalem":

"I use this forum today to say, President Abbas, meet me, and let's talk peace. We all have our grievances. We all have our, you know, our questions and things that we want answered. But the most important thing is to get together, sit down in a room and begin to negotiate peace. You cannot resolve a conflict, you cannot successfully complete a peace negotiation if you don't start it. And I say let's start it right now, today, tomorrow, in Jerusalem, in Ramallah or anywhere else. I'm prepared to go to a warm city like New York or a cool city anywhere. Let's get on with the business of talking peace and concluding the peace agreement."

Netanyahu also told the Council on Foreign Relations, according to Haaretz, that "if direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority begin, it would be possible to reach a peace deal within a year" and that "he did not return to the post of prime minister in order to do nothing" and that he was willing to make unprecedented concessions.