What Obama is doing in Israel

Obama’s overestimation of his personal ability to make change in the Middle East — driven by his domestic and global popularity, and the sense of history that hovered over his first year in office — was one of his first big mistakes, and an iconic one. Much of his first term was about learning that the laws of gravity continue to apply.

Now Obama’s trip to Israel and the West Bank this week is perhaps the least ambitious foreign trip of his presidency, as Josh Gerstein wrote today in Politico. Obama is now “a bit more humble” in his approach to the region, said Jeremy Ben Ami of the liberal Jewish group J Street, who was among the Jewish leaders who met with Obama on the issue four years ago and again last week. His group has pushed the president, largely in vain, to lean harder on Israel to make peace.

This week’s trip has no real agenda, which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a point. Its symbolism, including a trip to the grave of the creator of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, is clearly focused on reassuring the Israeli public that the president, and the United States, are firmly on their side — something that Republican politicians spent much of 2012 calling into question.