The US and Israel have developed a “special relationship” that isindependent of the specific leaders serving at specific periods inWashington and Jerusalem.
Clashes are inevitable between the idealist and pragmaticproclivities of the new Obama administration in foreign affairs. Infashioning Middle East policy, especially with regard to thePalestinian-Israeli conflict and Iran, Obama’s idealism will face harshrealities that limit his policy options. Obama and Netanyahu maysubscribe to different values and principles, but they are bothpragmatic leaders capable of adjusting to realities; and thus can beexpected to make efforts to avoid a major confrontation.
US President Obama wants to fix the international system and toeffectively combat global terrorism, and he wants to accomplish thesegoals by means opposite those utilized by his predecessor. He wants toreplace Bush’s exclusionary foreign policy, unilateralism, use of forceand reliance on preventive war, with multilateral diplomacy, closecooperation with allies and international organizations (including theUN), negotiations with adversaries such as Iran and Syria, and conflictresolution in international hotspots such as the Palestinian-Israeliarena. Obama also has placed the wider Middle East at the top of hisforeign policy agenda. […]
Even if the next government in Israel will be based on acenter-right coalition under Benjamin Netanyahu, it will not be themain obstacle for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, despite thereluctance of Netanyahu to adhere to the two-state formula. Clinton’sreaffirmation of the US commitment to the two-state formula and promiseto implement it, led commentators to conclude that the gap on thisissue will inevitably lead to a confrontation between Obama andNetanyahu. Similarly, the declared US intention to begin officialnegotiations with Iran and Syria could be a source of conflict betweenWashington and Jerusalem. 
Yet, the outgoing government negotiated with the PalestinianAuthority for over a year and even invented with Condoleezza Rice theinnovative but hollow concept of the “shelf agreement.” Thus far, allnegotiation efforts have failed. Unfortunately, Hamas – which haspower, is not interested in peace and accommodation; while the PA –which says it is interested in peace, is impotent.