Oftentimes, Israelis and their supporters bury their heads in the sand, ignoring all that goes on around them. For example, take the case of a university professor who joyously lauded an “opinion poll” claiming that 71 per cent of Arab respondents have “no interest” in the Palestinian-Israeli “peace process”.

Efraim Karsh, who teaches at King’s College, London and is author of “Palestine Betrayed”, cited the poll in a commentary, titled “The Palestinians, Alone” in a leading American newspaper, The New York Times, which in turn was remiss in not checking it.

It turned out that the shady poll was nothing more than an unprofessional survey of readers responding to another reader’s query on the website of an Arabic television network. Moreover, one would have thought that Karsh should have known better. His puerile analysis failed to differentiate between Arab views of the “peace process” - a lacklustre issue - and their genuine concern towards the Palestinians, whose homeland was mostly usurped by Israel 63 years ago, while the remaining segment - the West Bank ?nd the Gaza Strip - has been is still under Israeli control since 1967. His punch line was that the Palestinians should abandon their dependency on the Arab world. “The sooner the Palestinians recognise their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace...”

But Karsh would have done better had he absorbed what two prominent American Jewish leaders, Jeremy Benami and Debra Lee, wrote recently: “Decades of telling and retelling a comfortable narrative in which Israel is always extending its hand in peace, only to have it rejected by the Palestinians, understandably makes it hard to accept when the facts show otherwise.” They underlined that “facts don’t support the charge that the present Palestinian leadership is not a partner for peace”.

Although there has been a noteworthy change in American public opinion towards the Palestinian position, Arab public opinion has turned negative towards the Obama administration because of the US president’s perceived failure to deliver on the “new beginning” he highlighted at his memorable Cairo conference upon taking office. This is clear in the results of the pace-setting poll conducted in July by the University of Maryland and Zogby International in six Arab countries - Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco,?Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Only 15 per cent of Arabs remain hopeful while 63 per cent are discouraged about US policies, reported Dr Shibley Telhami, the principal investigator of the poll and the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. This is a “dramatic change”, Telhami emphasised, in the perception of President Obama, “whose disapproval rating jumped considerably, from 23 per cent in 2009 to 62 per cent in 2010”.

But the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remained “the single most disappointing issue for the Arab public, with 61 per cent of those polled citing that issue as a major disappointment, followed by 27 per cent citing Iraq”.

Nevertheless, 86 per cent of Arabs appeared prepared “in principle” to accept a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, but the number of those who believe that Israel would never accept such a solution has increased from 45 per cent in 2009 to 56 per cent in 2010. This may give some ammunition to those who are counting on a one-state settlement.

The confusion emanating from Israel’s dilly-dallying about peace with the Palestinians was best described in the lead paragraph of a recent Washington Post report by Janine Zacharia from the occupied West Bank. It read: “While Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak visited Washington ... to talk about peace gestures towards the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was planting a tree in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank– an indication of permanence that few Palestinians would welcome.”

Meanwhile, former US ambassador Chas Freeman lambasted Israel for being “an extreme liability for the US financially, strategically, politically”. His sharp viewpoint came in a response at a seminar at the Nixon Centre that focused on whether Israel is an “asset or liability” for the US.

“Clearly, Israel gets a great deal from us,” he complained, “yet it’s pretty taboo in the United States to ask what’s in it for Americans.” He went on, “Israel does none of ... what we generally expect allies and strategic partners to do for us ... and shows no interest in doing them”. His other sharp view: “[Israel] is therefore useless in terms of support for American power projection. It has no allies other than us. It has developed no friends.”

One then should not be surprised that Turkey has dumped the Israeli regime, or what others may want to do in the future.