Vice President Biden comes to Israel to jump-start peace talks, and the Netanyahu Government announces 1,600 new homes for settlers in East Jerusalem. In case you hadn't realized yet, the Netanyahu Government has zero respect for the Obama Administration.

An important component of Netanyahu's foreign policymaking is structural party politics. The infamously unstable Israeli political scene all too often makes small settler parties kingmakers in forming governments. This is only possibly in a system of proportional representation. In a first past the post system, a la the US and Britain, the winner of the election takes everything. This system usually leads to a two-party state, which is more stable and more centrist. Israel would be better off with such a system.