"The administration broke a lot of crockery with the Israelis and proved they couldn't leverage anything,"

The Cable, here

"The stuff about Israel and the United States being close to a deal on settlements is only partly accurate," said the expert, "Israel has been poking the U.S. in the eye on this for about 10 weeks, so any 'deal' the U.S. may do may simply not be sellable as a settlement freeze."

Aaron David Miller, a Wilson Center scholar and former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator, was pessimistic that any real progress was in the offing.

"They'll get their trilateral meeting out of politeness to Obama, but somebody needs to point out that an agreement with Israelis, even to restrict settlements for a finite amount of time, has never happened before," he said.

If and when they get to actual negotiations, the gaps on fraught issues such as Jerusalem will be galactic, Miller continued. "When the crisis arrives, and it will, what does the administration do then?"

"The administration broke a lot of crockery with the Israelis and proved they couldn't leverage anything," said Miller, "It makes America looks weak."