Jacob’s analysis of the fraught relation between Obama and Netanyahu obscures the significant change in orientation displayed by Obama during his March trip to Israel.

First, Obama made evident that he realized that obstacles to achieving peace stemmed at least as much from the Palestinians as from the Israelis. Contrary to Jacob’s suggestion that Israelis take American support for granted, Israelis have grown accustomed over the years to hearing reproaches and denunciations from the United States as well as from Europe—most of them to the effect that if only Israel would act decently, peace could be achieved. Obama’s evenhandedness in March felt to Israelis like a warm embrace.

Second, the president indicated that Palestinians must not merely recognize Israel but recognize it as a Jewish state. Such recognition is not an empty gesture or a matter of semantics. Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state is critical because Palestinians understand that recognizing Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people effectively means waiving the Palestinians’ preferred interpretation of the “right of return.” According to it, approximately 5 million refugees in and out of camps in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and scattered around the world would automatically be eligible to become Israeli citizens. If such a right were exercised by even a small minority, it would swamp Israel, whose total population is only about 7.7 million. Palestinian refusal to relent on the interpretation of the right of return is a major obstacle to bringing the conflict to an end.

Third, while in Jerusalem, Obama also modified the opinion he expressed in Cairo four years earlier that Israel's existence was primarily justified as a response to the horrors of the Holocaust. That opinion bolsters the Palestinian narrative holding that Israel is a colonialist enterprise, a foreign imposition on Arab lands, an act of European atonement at Arab expense for European crimes against the Jews. Instead, Obama emphasized that Israel’s identity as the nation state of the Jewish people is grounded in an ancestral connection to the land that extends back thousands of years as well as in the right Jews share with other peoples of the world to be free and self-governing.

Finally, in Jerusalem the president abandoned the idea that the parties must fulfill preconditions before entering negotiations. To be sure, confidence-building measures undertaken by both sides would be most welcome. But negotiations, when begun with the proper expectations, can in themselves serve as a powerful confidence-building measure.

In conclusion: Israeli settlements are a challenge. But they are not an insuperable obstacle to the achievement of peace. Approximately 75 to 80 percent of Israelis who live beyond the Green line live on just 6 percent of the land beyond the Green line. And in 2005, Israel effected a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Bigger challenges stem from the upheavals in the Arab world—upheavals which have nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians—and the enmity within the Palestinian ranks between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority that governs Palestinians in the West Bank and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and enjoys considerable support in the West Bank. The instability and violence all around them induces caution among Israelis. Finally, perhaps the biggest challenge arises from widespread Palestinian incitement of hatred of Israel. This incitement is routinely promulgated by Palestinian schools and mosques; Palestinian Authority- and Hamas-run newspapers, TV, and radio; and Palestinian political leaders, including Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, particularly when he speaks in Arabic.

In these circumstances, courage by the people of Israel and by the leaders of Israel will indeed be needed to deal with the daunting challenges Israel faces in making progress toward peace with the Palestinians.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book is Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation.

Image: Flickr/James Emery. CC BY 2.0.