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Source: http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php?cat=21&incat=&read=4715
Israel's Diplomatic Achievements
(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Zaki Shalom - The starting point of relations between the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration was inauspicious. Netanyahu's first meeting with President Obama (May 2009) and President Obama's speech at Cairo University (June 2009) in many ways seemed to augur a new low in bilateral relations. It appeared that the administration was seeking to ignore the understandings reached between the Sharon and Olmert governments and the Bush administration on the issue of settlements. The administration announced a goal of the total cessation of building in the settlements and presented it as a unilateral diktat by the United States, rather than as an objective achieved through dialogue, as is required by the relationship that has developed between Israel and the U.S. over the years. Ultimately, the Netanyahu government succeeded in redirecting the president's demands into an ongoing dialogue with Middle East envoy George Mitchell. At the end of this dialogue, rules of the game were established that were largely different from those that the Obama administration had sought to establish. In practice, the administration accepted Israel's position that the peace process must be advanced within the framework of negotiations between the two sides, and not through imposed dictates.