The Israelis keep saying they want peace but they can't seem to support a "freeze" on the expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls that an "unprecedented" gesture by Israel.

Not really. Israel's rightwing governments, and even its leftwing governments, have long talked the talk of peace but failed to walk the walk. They say they want peace but when the time comes to put up or shut up, they never deliver.

Why does Israel insist on expanding its settlements when freezing settlements would open the door to renewed peace negotiations? Because the tragic answer could be that Israel really does not want a final peace settlement. It enjoys talking about peace while continuing policies that make peace impossible to achieve.

Although President Barack Obama tried hard to define a new strategy to achieve peace by insisting that all sides, including Israel, make substantive concessions, Israel has recognized that Obama does not have the full support of even his own party on pressuring Israel to do the right thing.

If Israel does not want to do the right thing, the U.S. Congress, choked by Israel's rightwing lobbying arm, AIPAC, will not force it to do the right thing. Congress would rather stand up to Obama and the American people than to a foreign country, which bleeds this country of more than $6 billion a year in foreign aid. The same day Clinton made her embarrassing comment, the U.S. Congress, in a lifelong AIPAC headlock, approved a resolution ordering the United States government to turn its back on justice and reject the findings of the Goldstone Commission on Israeli and Hamas war crimes.

As an example of how far Congress will go to embrace hypocrisy and to compromise principle, one need only look at the debate on health care. While many in Congress refuse to support a government sponsored "public option" for health care in the United States, thanks to American taxpayers, Israelis enjoy a government sponsored public health care option.

But for the members of the United States Congress, Israel's interests have always been more important than the interests of everyday American taxpayers.

That is a reality that the Obama administration must reconcile. Not even a president determined to do the right thing can force Israel to do the right thing, even for the sake of peace.

Secretary of State Clinton's fumbled words calling Israel's refusal to "freeze" settlement expansion as a necessary step to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians as being "unprecedented" became the cold water thrown in the face of the Arab World and its people. It may even have extinguished the fire that has been fueling the re-empowerment and resurgence of the moderate movement among Israelis and Palestinians.

It's now obvious that the United States, even with Obama as president, may be incapable of doing what needs to be done to force Israel to do the right thing when it refuses to do the right thing.

We should all step back and begin to prepare for more conflict as moderate voices in the Arab World are pushed aside by Israel's refusal to compromise on a simple and justified demand to stop seizing Palestinian lands and stop expanding illegal settlements on land that Israel presumably would return as a part of a permanent peace deal.

If Israel can't even give back that land in exchange for peace, what is the point of trying to achieve peace with Israel?

It may be back to the bomb shelters, folks, for Palestinians who have turned their bomb shelters into everyday lives and Israelis who continue to believe they can live normal lives in an unreasoned world of their own reticence.

It's only a matter of time that without a strong voice of reason to push Israel to do the right thing, the region will once again be plunged into increased violence. That violence is the goal sought by the extremists on both sides who feed on the failure of the peace process that they help to block. And Israel's refusal to compromise only emboldens the extremists in their goal.

Maybe the answer to Clinton's failure is that she should pay the price of failure and resign from office. Maybe Obama can salvage Middle East peace by firing her and sending someone with more resolve to the region to stand firm against Israeli intransigence.

That might be an action that would speak volumes towards genuine intent.

What Obama's vision lacks is an effective emissary with the willpower to pursue true peace with vigor and determination and resolve; a peace that is a two-sided process in which Israel returns land and the Arabs give increased recognition leading Israel to a final welcome into the Middle East family of nations.

Once again, it is a Clinton who may have undermined the solution everyone knows is the only answer to the Middle East conflict, two states formed through real compromise.

But like her husband, I am sure Hillary Clinton will find a way to protect Israel and blame her own failures on the Arabs. That's what Congress would want, anyway.

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