Finally, there’s a Middle East peace process under way, and both sides appear anxious to make progress.

No, not the one between Israel and the Palestinians. I’m talking about making peace between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. After months of acrimony, accusations and attack ads, both sides, feeling battered and bruised, say they’re ready.

The White House, stung by criticism from many of its friends and supporters in the Jewish community and on Capitol Hill, launched an “aggressive” PR “blitz” to reassure critics that the relationship remains “unshakable and unbreakable,” in the words of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

He was just one of a squadron of top-level officials, starting with the president, spreading the message and trying to head off “domestic repercussions of the recent clashes” between Washington and Jerusalem, reported Politico’s Laura Rozen.

IT IS a victory for Netanyahu, who complained to supporters here that the administration has been unfair and unkind to him. He has a reputation for clashing with American presidents, and a propensity to intrigue against them with their political foes to foil what he considers aggressive peace policies.

The prime minister has resisted pressure from the Obama administration, which at times was clumsy and heavy-handed, to force a construction freeze in east Jerusalem and elicit other concessions to the Palestinians in an effort to resume peace talks suspended since late 2008. But recent talk of anAmerican peace plan may have changed Netanyahu’s mind. There are reports – understandably denied – that he has frozen new construction in east Jerusalem, and has offered Palestinians a package of confidence-building measures in the hope of heading off an Obama initiative.

Aaron David Miller, a veteran peace envoy, suggests the determined “peace processors” are all just treading water.

Peace “requires leaders with the legitimacy, authority and command of their politics to make a deal stick,” he writes in Foreign Policy, and neither Netanyahu nor Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has that. Both are “more prisoners of their constituencies than masters of them.” There are no “bold and heroic Arab and Israeli leaders... willing and able to do serious peacemaking,” he said, and there are no signs of any waiting in the wings. “Right now, America has neither the opportunity nor frankly the balls to do truly big things on Arab-Israeli peacemaking,” he writes.

Both Netanyahu and Abbas say they want peace, but their actions tell a different story. Neither is looking for opportunities to narrow differences, but rather for excuses to avoid serious negotiations and blame the other for the failure.

Netanyahu has made a number of important moves since his election – notably endorsing a two-state solution – but he has failed to get much credit because he gives the impression that he is being dragged kicking and screaming to the peace table by the big bad president of the United States. That may placate some of his ultra-nationalist coalition partners, but it doesn’t help him convince the Arabs, the Europeans, most Israelis and the Americans that he is serious when he says he wants peace.

ABBAS, FOR his part, seems to be trying to make Netanyahu look dovish. He refuses to meet face-to-face unless his several demands are met, including a freeze on construction in every part of the land that he wants for a Palestinian state. His latest move is a call for Obama to “impose” a settlement on Israel.

That drew a quick rejection. The president wrote a letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations declaring “peace cannot be imposed from the outside.”

That message has been repeated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others.

This week, following meetings with US peace envoy George Mitchell – he’s trying to launch indirect talks – both Netanyahu and Abbas sounded more conciliatory, perhaps becausethe White House was busy making peace with Bibi and Abbas got an invitation to the Oval Office.

Netanyahu said he wants to begin talks “immediately,” including on final-status issues of borders, refugees, sovereignty and Jerusalem, and Abbas told Israel’s Channel 2 news that he expects negotiations to resume next month. Abbas also made conciliatory remarks about solving the refugee issue, and said he opposes a unilateral declaration of statehood.

Don’t rush out to order your tickets for the peace treaty signing ceremony. All this really means is that Israel and the Palestinians want peace with the Obama administration. Peace with each other is another matter.

I’m no great fan of former secretary of state James Baker, but he was right when he declared the US can’t want peace more than the Israelis and Palestinians themselves. And right now, Aaron Miller suggests, there are more important issues facing the US than trying to help forge agreements between Israelis and Palestinians whose leaders are not ready, willing or able to make difficult decisions and carry them out.