as long as the obama administration was only willing to use carrots and not sticks to get israel to agree to a settlement freeze, the policy was doomed to failure. the current israeli government isn't at all inclined to seek a real settlement with the palestinians, they know they already have security guarantees from the u.s. (whether or not it has ever been made explicitly) and are not so desperate for a new set of stealth planes that they would risk the wrath of the coalition's settler base to get them.
if the administration really wanted to get netanyahu's government to agree to a real settlement freeze they needed to at least threaten to cut off or reduce u.s. aid to israel. occasionally someone proposes that the u.s. subtract the value of the israeli government's subsidies to settlement communities and construction costs for new settlements from the amount of aid it gives. why not threaten to do that unless there is an immediate and real construction freeze? that would potentially jeopardize the money the settlements need to exist, which may convince the settlers that a freeze is preferable. and that, in turn, would increase the changes of a freeze getting approval in bibi's cabinet.
the problem with that is american domestic politics. u.s. aid is allocated by congress, which means a cut off of aid would have to be part of a budget bill. any proposal to do anything other than increase aid to israel would be a completely non-starter in the current congress (and in any foreseeable congress).
which means that the prospect for a u.s.-brokered israeli-palestinian peace deal is pretty dim. i just don't see it happening, even if obama really got serious about it.
