Post-Election Israel-US Analysis: Why Obama Should Seek More than "Empathy" with Netanyahu

One of the more interesting assessments of Tuesday's US voting came from the Jerusalem Post's Herb Keinon: "In election defeat, Obama may now better understand PM."

Keinon assesses that President Obama will continue seeking a two-state solution; however, the columnist says that Obama will no longer be pushing to get the majority of concessions from Benjamin Netanyahu, as the US President will now recognise the domestic constraints that the Israeli Prime Minister faces.

While the Obama Administration has had a blow, it is still difficult to see Keinon's analysis of domestic political considerations --- in both the US and Israel --- as a convenient excuse to call for a Washington tilt towards West Jerusalem.

Given that the Republicans are still a minority in the Senate, Obama's defeat on Tuesday was far from comprehensive. Even if it was, it does not follow that adopting a pro-Israeli position turns setback into success: Keinon's invocation that Obama needs "political empathy", making the analogy with President Clinton in 1994, when he "quickly adjusted his polices and moved toward the center" is shallow, both in its assumption of the same situation in 2010 and 16 years earlier and its dismissal of considerations beyond the domestic.

Beyond the Republicans, the US faces other powers --- from Ankara to Damascus to Tehran --- who wish to assert their influence in the region. So where is Washington's front line: in an artificial "empathy" at home or in a decisive move abroad to get a real gain, one which be useful at the ballot boxes in 2012 but have much greater benefits before that?