Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boards a plane in Israel on Sunday ahead of his Washington visit.

Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for an immediate resumption of peace talks with Palestinians Monday before meeting with President Barack Obama.

"My goal is to achieve a permanent peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians and soon," Netanyahu said in a speech to the Jewish Federations of North America. “I say to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority: Let us seize the moment to reach an historic agreement, let us begin talks immediately,”

Netanyahu said he would work for a lasting peace with the Palestinians, promising "great concessions" as long as they don't compromise Israel's security.

“With the support of the United States, peace can become a reality,” Netanyahu said, hours meeting with President Obama to discuss the peace process and Iran's nuclear program.

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Obama with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas two months ago.

Aaron David Miller
Special to CNN

When Barack Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize next month in Oslo, Norway, one thing seems clear: It won't be in recognition of his skill in advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace.

For much of the past year, the administration has wandered around the not-so-Holy Land without clear direction, an accurate understanding of Israelis and Palestinians, or an effective strategy.

But all is not lost. The past 10 months could be, to use the president's words, a teachable moment, and with the right lessons learned, maybe, just maybe, the president could get back on track.

The lessons:

Keep your enthusiasm under control: In January, President Obama came out harder, faster and louder on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking than any of his predecessors. The speech in Cairo, Egypt, and his ultimatum to the Israelis on freezing settlements seemed to suggest that this president was going to be tough and fair. No more business as usual.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the political laws of gravity that make getting anything done on Arab-Israeli diplomacy very hard kicked in, dragging down the president's hopes and words.

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Benjamin Netanyahu, left, President Obama and Mahmoud Abbas.

Fawaz A. Gerges
CNN

Poor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas! He returned to Palestine empty-handed and politically weakened after the tripartite summit this week with President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The New York summit yielded no signs of a breakthrough either on freezing construction of Jewish settlements or restarting the long-stalled Palestinian-Israeli talks.

By laying equal blame on the Palestinians and Israelis for the diplomatic stalemate, Obama undermined Abbas' position at home and exposed his weakness and overdependence on the Americans.

It is important to understand the context of Abbas' initial reluctance to attend the tripartite summit in New York. He swallowed his pride and accepted Obama's invitation to meet with Netanyahu, even though he had set a precondition of a settlement freeze, as the U.S. demanded, before agreeing to meet Netanyahu.

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President Obama addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

Bill Richardson
CNN

President Obama, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, announced the next phase in America's efforts to finally end the decades-long Israeli-Arab conflict and remove one of the greatest destabilizing elements to America's national security interests from the Middle East playing field.

Like health care reform, this is a daunting task, and in order for the president to be the last one confronting this, Congress and Americans of all stripes should be supporting him.

The president made it clear that the United States wants permanent status negotiations to begin without preconditions based on the parameters from past negotiations: security for Israel and Palestine, refugees, borders and Jerusalem. The president added that the United States seeks peace agreements on all fronts, including with Syria and Lebanon.

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Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

Prodding Israel and the Palestinian Authority to restart talks aimed at a permanent resolution of their decades-old conflict, President Barack Obama dropped a US demand for an Israeli settlement freeze, US, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

“Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward," Obama told reporters before a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "It is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that is necessary to achieve our goals."

Obama met first met separately with Netanyahu and Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in what he called "frank and productive" talks. The session was the first among the three leaders since Obama took office in January.

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Program Note: Watch Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish's interview TONIGHT on AC360° 11p ET

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish
Daughters for Life

Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish came to the world's attention during the recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, when the respected obstetrician, holed up with his family in their home, gave daily interviews from the battle zone on Israeli television and radio.

Then, on Jan. 16, the last day of the offensive, Israeli fire killed three of his daughters. "My God, my girls," Abuelaish wailed that night on Israeli television, decrying the loss of Bessan, 20, Mayar, 15, and Aya, 14, as well as his niece, Nur Abuelaish, 17. Now he is trying to use his fluent Hebrew and English - and his pain - to appeal for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. What follows is an edited transcript of an interview he did with The Times' Marjorie Miller.

I had returned home on Dec. 25 from Tel Hashomer, the hospital where I work in Israel. That day, they had opened the border for humanitarian aid for the first time in more than a month, which made me realize something bad would happen. At 10 a.m. on the 26th, the airstrikes started.

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Editor's Note: A foundation, with an international mandate, is being established to provide leadership development and educational access to women throughout the middle-east. The foundation honors the memory of Dr. Abuelaish's daughters and serve as a living legacy. For more, check  Daughters for Life 

Program Note: Tune in tomorrow for more on Izzeldin's story in 'Generation Islam,' as Christiane Amanpour reveals the struggle for hearts and minds of the next generation of Muslims. Tomorrow 9 p.m. ET.

A building damaged by an airstrike in the southern Gaza strip during the conflict in January.

Isabel Maxwell
Israel Insider

Back at the end of October last, I was in Tel Aviv at the international conference celebrating the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Peres Center for Peace activities, which I attended in my capacity as a member of the Board of Governors. There were 40 international guests including many Palestinians and Palestinian students too, who were highly participatory and I felt encouraged for the first time since the Lebanon War of the summer before.

Little did I know then that within three short months, Israel would plunge into Gaza, and that I would become a telephone witness to the unspeakable tragedy of one recently widowed Gazan doctor, whom I had befriended 10 years before when he was a resident at Soroka Hospital and I was receiving an award from there and getting involved with helping fundraise for the hospital.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish with the author, Isabel Maxwell, taken at UCLA in April earlier this year.

By now most of the readers of this column will know the public story: the doctor from Jabalaya who was trained by Israel and treated Israelis and Palestinians alike at Soroka Hospital. A peace activist, whose three daughters of his eight children, were horrifically killed last Friday when his house was bombed during an exchange of fire between an Israeli tank and Hamas. There was Bisan, aged 20 who had taken over her mother’s role and was also a student – she had been thrown from a bed to the floor. Mayar, 15, and Aya, 14, were also dead, along with Noor, a 17-year-old cousin. Shatha, 17, who was badly wounded in the eye, was a straight-A student, and another niece was badly wounded too.

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Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted Israel Monday for evicting dozens of Palestinians from homes in East Jerusalem, calling the move a violation of Israel's obligations.

"I think these actions are deeply regrettable, Clinton told reporters following a meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. "The eviction of families and demolition of homes in East Jerusalem is not in keeping with Israeli obligations. And I urge the government of Israel and municipal officials to refrain from such provocative actions."

The U.S. protested the evictions Sunday to the Israeli embassy in Washington, which are complicating U.S. efforts to jumpstart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The U.S. believes the move is not keeping with Israel's obligations over the U.S.-backed roadmap for peace, which calls for an end to all settlement activity.

"Both sides have responsibilities to refrain from provocative actions that can block the path toward a comprehensive peace agreement," Clinton said. "Unilateral actions taken by either party cannot be used to prejudge the outcome of negotiations. And they will not be recognized as changing the status quo."

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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, shakes hands with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak.

Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

Don't you just love a parade? Apparently the Obama administration does too, as evident by the steady stream of top US officials visiting Israel this week. A bevy of heavy hitters are there, the likes of which Jerusalem hasn't seen since the Persian Gulf War.

Just as Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrapped up his meetings there, Mideast peace envoy Mitchell arrived for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will be followed later this week by National Security Advisor James Jones and Dennis Ross, the White House's point main on Iran.

Aaron Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator under president Clinton and author of "The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace," calls it "the big hug," a show of reassurance to Israel that the US Israeli relationship remains strong despite the current squabble over settlements.

To be sure, ties between the countries have been strained over President Obama's firm insistence that Israel halt all settlement as part of his drive for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, including a Palestinian state. And Israel is concerned Obama's engagement policy vis-à-vis Iran will come at the expense of its own security.

But the flurry of diplomatic activity sends a strong signal that these disagreements are minor in comparison to how central the US-Israel relationship is, and how large Israel looms in every piece of the American policy puzzle in the Mideast.

Which is why Gates offered Israel security reassurances with talks on Iran and missile defense. And why Mitchell emphasized the enduring strength of the friendship between the US and Israel and has been working on a deal with the Israelis on settlements, which is expected to include a freeze on construction but would allow several hundred buildings already under construction to be exempted.

One question remains about this diplomatic A-team, though. Where is Hillary Clinton? The Secretary of State hasn't visited the Middle East March, when held one day of talks with Israeli officials. She has not been to Israel since Netanyahu took office.

To be fair, Clinton just returned from a 7-day trip to Asia and spent the beginning of the week hosting top Chinese officials for two days of strategic talks. Next week she leaves for a seven-nation tour of Africa.

But on Sunday Clinton appeared Sunday NBC's "Meet the Press," where she missed an opportunity to frame the week's visits within the context of the Obama administration's plans for Mideast peacemaking. She spent a fair amount of time insisting she was President Obama's chief diplomat and and deflecting criticism that she was "sidelined" by President Obama's team of foreign policy heavyweights and because of an elbow injury. "I broke my elbow, not my larynx," she told David Gregory.

Yet in the full hour President Obama's chief diplomat didn't mention the Mideast peace process, one of Obama's stated top foreign policy priorities, even once. Clinton already enjoys a healthy dose of Israeli respect from her days as a pro-Israel senator from New York. Now Clinton must also define herself, both in word and in deed, as a key player on the President's Mideast peace team.

President Obama, too, has to work at his relationship with Israel. His aides can only do so much to ease Israeli fears about his intentions. Candidate Obama got high marks for visit to Israel during the campaign. But if he wants to now been seen as the kind of honest broker that can achieve true Mideast peace, he needs to make his own trip to Israel. His Cairo speech in June established his credentials with the Arab world. Now it's Israel's turn.

Vice President Joe Biden's recent comments on Israel worried some law-makers.

Charley Keyes
CNN Senior Producer

The State Department carefully steered through new questions Monday over whether the United States would approve an Israeli attack on Iran to disrupt its nuclear program.

Vice President Joe Biden revved up the issue Sunday when he said the United States can’t dictate to Israel. "Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden said on ABC’s “This Week.”

State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly Monday said: “Our goal here is to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. When I say ‘our” it is just not the United States –it is the international community.”

“Israel is a sovereign country. We are not going to dictate its actions. We also are committed to Israel’s security and we share Israel’s deep concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.”

Could this be interpreted as the U.S. flashing a  green light for Israel, the number-one recipient of U.S. aid, to attack Iran’s nuclear sites?  “I certainly would not want to give a green-light to any kind of military action,” Kelly said.