The Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg tells Haaretz as Barack Obama touches down in Israel:
President Obama listened carefully to the things President Clinton told him. I believe he now understands that the Israelis are a damaged, lonely and neurotic people who face genuine threats to their existence, so they need love badly. Obama won’t embrace you the way that Clinton embraced you because he isn’t Clinton and he doesn’t embrace anyone. But in his own way he will do his best to tell you: I love you. I get what you are and I admire what you’ve done. Obama will thereby create the space that will enable him to combat Israeli policy that seems wrong to him and in his estimation jeopardizes Israel’s future and also hurts the United States.