WASHINGTON-Fresh starts, the exciting potential of possibility, wellsprings of hope, flutters of optimism-that's what new beginnings often bring. And so this first meeting of U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pregnant with possibility, carrying seeds of hope against hope, even among those who are so very jaded and war weary.

But the atmosphere in the Oval Office was thickly heavy with solemnity as the two leaders struggled to engender hope while grappling with the very sobering realities of their ephemeral grasp on peace.

The usually upbeat American President was uncharacteristically pensive and both men seemed to be struggling to have some meeting of the minds, while jointly endeavoring to project a semblance of optimism.

At the Capitol the next day, the Prime Minister emerged from his meetings with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, looking more serious than ever.

The sense was one of a gaping grave divide, despite the special relationship and bond that has been the hallmark of U.S.-Israel relations.

Then the Iranian threat, which had been an emphasized theme at the White House, loomed even larger when, before Netanyahu's plane had even landed back in Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad announced the firing of a new medium range missile that can reach Israel and southeastern Europe. Almost simultaneously, the Palestinians bombed the Israeli city of Sderot, launching missiles from the very same Gaza Strip from which Israel evacuated several years ago, as a confidence building measure.

The meeting of President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has become a Rorschach test-with interpretations ranging the spectrum, depending on the view of the beholder.

An editorial in one of Israel's daily papers, Yediot Ahronot, said, "Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem symbolizes more than anything the revival of the Jewish People in its Land and the return to Zion ... giving up parts of the city or handing over part of the sovereignty ... to an international regime would be the antithesis of the Zionist idea, which holds that the Jews are entitled to have a genuinely sovereign regime in their Land, like all peoples, which do not share sovereignty over their capitals or over their most sacred places."

Yet even more to the essence of the matter, which is also the most sublime aspect, the newspaper Maariv wrote, "Our obsessive preoccupation with the future of 'the united city' is mainly an attempt to atone for the fact that we have forgotten our spiritual home here in Jerusalem. Our true war is over the place that Jerusalem holds in the heart and mind of Israeli society and over its ability to be the true spiritual home for us all. All the rest is really very simple."

Let us hope that the result of these renewed peace efforts will truly be a thing of simplicity and beauty for all.

For what appears obvious, logical and reasonable may have no connection with what is true and right and necessary.

When we recite the Shema prayer, we say that we will not go after the wishes of our own hearts and heads, but instead, we will remember that G-d is our pilot (I'd like to think that Capt. Sully Sullenberger, is a bit of a representative of that idea) and we are here to do what G-d wants. We are here to do the footwork, to do our unique individual part to be co-creators with the Creator to bring the world to its peaceful and glorious completion.

We have the privilege of praying three times a day every day and concluding each Passover Seder and each Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, with "Next year in Jerusalem."

So clearly it is Israel who needs the confidence building measures by its so-called partners in peace.

Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to stick to his convictions and continue to proceed with extreme caution despite the crushing world pressure, because to agree to the seemingly lovely American proposals, though they sound great, is sheer suicide at worst and delusion at best.

A contiguous Palestinian state next to Israel? So the Palestinians can do what Hezbollah does, raining down missiles from Lebanon?

So they can do what Hamas does from Gaza, raining down missiles on not so Southern Israel?

How is the Jewish state to trust an international "peace-keeping" force in the very sacred Old City of Jerusalem when half of that area is proposed to be capital of the Palestinian State, and the international peacekeepers presiding over the rest are those very peacekeepers who in Gaza helped Hamas and allowed innocent women and children to be sacrificed, used as human shields? The peacekeepers who then utter mealy mouthed blame and bluster to obfuscate their actual heinous lack of neutrality?

Why is Israel to agree to a two state solution when Hamas has only called for one state and delightedly and repeatedly called for Israel's destruction? And when the "moderate" Palestinian leadership, Fatah, ruling from Ramallah, refuses to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state?

Why doesn't the world see the truth?

Why does the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ask Tony Blair, the Quartet's Middle East envoy and former British prime minister, questions almost exclusively regarding the welfare of the Palestinians and not the welfare of the suffering shell shocked Israelis?

What is real is not evident to the eye. That is true for faith and heritage and truth and integrity. Those invisibles that must be, stand indivisible under G-d.

Why doesn't the oh so wealthy Arab world help their poor Palestinian brethren and take them in, financially and in all other ways? Because this really doesn't have to do with concern for the downtrodden Palestinians. If that were the truth, that could have been solved long ago.

The truth is deeper, less evident, perhaps, but far more real. It behooves the Israeli Prime Minister to continue to heed his father's sad lesson that the only ones who will take care of Israel and the Jews are the Jewish people.

How much more time are we going to give the Iranians to go deeper in their deception and more underground in their self protection? As much as President Obama is trying to do things so very differently from his predecessor, is there not a gross mistake in schlepping out this, "yoo hoo Iran, the Israelis may be coming." Did the U.S. not make the same error in Iraq, dreying out the possibility of invasion and enabling Iraq to, poof, suddenly have no WMDs around?

So while Iran is not going to stop its nuclear build up, it is getting the luxury of laughingly taking their time to prepare for whatever eventuality the U.S. and or Israel may bring their way.

Before, during and after we, us little individuals, do our daily footwork, making every effort to create peace-within our selves, our homes, our relationships, our every interaction with another, we need to pray. As we have so very clearly seen, true peace and security lie not in the stock market or in false gods using steroids or implants or ponzi schemes. Before and after all is said and done, it is G-d who is running the world. When we acknowledge that, and walk that walk, (halacha in Hebrew, also, coincidentally, the Hebrew word for Torah guidance) then we will truly be partners in peace. And in the meantime, we pray to the One who has the whole world in His/Her hands.

As King David urges us in the book of Psalms, "pray for the peace of Jerusalem."