At his election, American President Barack Obama had reassured a sceptical, jittery Israel that the special bond between the US and Israel would be unshaken. He reiterated as much in Cairo in June, with a speech that mesmerised the Arab world into believing that Washington would, at the same time, recast its role in the Middle East. Middle East envoy George Mitchell’s frequent visits were a mark of Obama’s deep, personal commitment to West Asia, in stark contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush.

So neither Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu nor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could refuse to travel to New York for the tripartite meet on Tuesday, although neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians believed that a date for the commencement of peace talks or concessions would be announced, their entrenched disagreements having already torpedoed Mitchell’s last-minute efforts with both sides last week. Meanwhile, Obama’s popularity in Israel and the West Bank kept plummeting.

Only the Americans still showed a sense of desperation to make the meet more than a photo opportunity. It ended up being just that: a cold handshake between Netanyahu and Abbas, with Obama in the background. The meeting was protocol, not political. An inventory of what Obama had hoped for would run: agreement on reopening peace negotiations, with the objective of creating a Palestinian state, and an announcement that he would make to that effect; with that first objective achieved, announcement of a deadline for the Palestinian state; agreement on the principles and processes of the peace talks; a final, unambiguous declaration of confidence-building measures that would certainly include Israel’s settlement freeze and concrete efforts by Arab states for normalising relations with Israel.

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