Given American (and European) refusal to directly deploy the considerable leverage at their disposal to push Israel to de-occupation, it is better if the President not insist on the immediate resumption of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israeli impunity and maximalism combined with the asymmetry between the parties - exacerbated rather than mitigated by U.S. policy - guarantees that renewed direct negotiations will do more harm than good, further convincing the respective publics that a deal is impossible. No wonder Naftali Bennet (and Hamas) see no threat in further negotiations, even with Minister Livni at the helm.
What then is left for a visiting President to do? Some cling to the notion that more American assurances and carrots will encourage Israel on the road to peace. That is farcical. The juiciest economic, military and diplomatic carrots have already been conferred on Israel irrespective of its entrenchment of occupation or violations of international law. No American carrot will induce Naftali Bennett or Uri Ariel, or Netanyahu and his faction of annexationists to abandon the settlements. So if the President is unwilling to change the rules of the game, better that he go with the flow, that he embrace and own the primacy of the political in this relationship. He can dust-off and re-tool part of the Clinton playbook of the 1990's for engineering Israeli politics.
And that is probably what Obama's visit should and in fact may start to do. By speaking directly to Israelis, including at an especially convened event in Jerusalem, Obama is doing something he avoided in his first term: He is accumulating some personal credit in the bank with the Israeli public. He should be looking to create an opportunity during his second term to draw on that deposit by building toward a clear moment of decision for Israel on the terms of reference for a two-state deal, notably a territorial resolution based on the 1967 lines with equal and minimal land swaps.
The relationship with Israel's new kingmaker and self-anointed future king, Yair Lapid, should also be seen through a political lens. Can Lapid be educated on the Palestinian issue (he sure needs it)? Is he worth investing in? And what should he be expected to do on the Palestinian issue from within the government (most likely preventive in nature) in exchange? Through public diplomacy Lapid's voters should be convinced that something is at stake if Yesh Atid support the settlement policies and peace rejectionism of Netanyahu-Bennett.
Finally, the U.S. administration should understand the political significance and potential residing in the composition of the new opposition, which brings together the centre-left and Arab parties with a Haredi bloc that is now in a tense stand-off with the in-government nationalist religious settler camp. The President and future high-level visitors should not waste their time (or at least waste minimal time) in bilateral meetings with opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich; they should rather celebrate Israeli democracy by convening together a broader spectrum of the Knesset opposition leadership that includes members of the Haredi and Arab factions, Meretz, and Labour's more diplomatically-inclined leaders such as Yitzhak Herzog and Merav Michaeli. Obama should hold such a meeting. Engagement by American and other foreign dignitaries can help this alliance, one that is potentially crucial for Israel's future, to gel around a shared national security platform and not just a domestic agenda.
For the Palestinian leadership the Obama visit should be (yet another) occasion for drawing their own conclusions on the need to accumulate leverage independent of U.S. policy.
American presidents are not Middle East scholars, they are politicians. If Obama begins to grasp the tribal, fluid and divided nature of Israeli politics and how he might impact the political calculations of Israeli voters and tribal leaders (including the new leader of the Ashkenazi middle class tribe, Yair Lapid and especially given Netanyahu's weakened position) then this visit might be worth something after all.
