The ongoing row between Washington and Tel Aviv serves to show that the tail can wag the dog only for so long. After a while, even the most indulgent of uncles will stop handing out blank cheques to a spoiled nephew.

The public — and unprecedented — rebukes emanating from the Obama administration will probably subside soon. But the underlying tension over the housing activities being carried out in blatant disregard for international law in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank will linger.Privately, Obama is said to be seething over the snub delivered to Vice President Biden — and by extension, to the United States — by the Israeli government. Already, he is frustrated by the Israeli refusal to halt construction activities in order to get the peace process moving. When he delivered his historic address in Cairo last year, one of the key points he made (to thunderous applause) was that new housing units in the occupied territories had to stop.

Bibi Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition has done everything it could to show that it was not taking orders from Obama, and has gone full steam ahead with construction. Impotently, the Palestinians have played the only card they hold, and refused to enter into talks without a complete halt to this illegal construction. And thus far, the Obama administration had meekly gone along with Tel Aviv, refusing to condemn Israeli intransigence in clear and unambiguous words. Secretary of State Clinton has used weasel words like ‘unhelpful’ to describe this aggressive Israeli policy.

While observers in Washington have depicted this public discord as a quarrel within a marriage and not a divorce, the fact is that Israel has overplayed its hand. Coming on the heels of the Mossad fiasco in Dubai in which its agents assassinated a top Hamas leader, and were shown to be using forged passports of citizens of friendly countries, Israel now faces censure on a global scale.

Ordinarily, this would not have bothered the country’s leaders as they were confident that they had American backing, no matter how despicably they behaved. For them, the indignation of a few European countries over the Dubai murder was like a passing spring shower as the American umbrella had always kept them dry in the past.

Suddenly, however, they are facing the limits to which even the acquiescent Americans can be pushed. Over the years, Israel has been fortunate in having such a powerful and unquestioning ally. But it has been even more fortunate in the mediocrity of its enemies.

For years, Israel has used vague threats to its existence to derail peace talks, insisting that the world (ie, the United States) must first address the dangers the Zionist state was facing before any meaningful peace talks could begin. Over four decades after it captured large swathes of Palestinian land, it is still using the same tactics.

First, it was the PLO’s refusal to unequivocally recognise Israel’s right to exist that gave it the excuse not to negotiate. Once the PLO announced that it had changed its charter, and acknowledged the state of Israel, it reluctantly agreed to the Camp David talks. Once talks began during Bill Clinton’s last days in office, it imposed so many conditions and caveats that even Yasser Arafat was unable to agree.

Of course, Iran’s nuclear programme, combined with President Ahemdinejad’s bellicose statements against Israel, have not helped the Palestinian cause one iota. On the contrary, they have given Tel Aviv yet another reason to clamour that its existence is at risk, and before it can think of giving up occupied territory, Iran’s nuclear facilities must be taken out first.

After Hamas’s election victory, Israel found another convenient scapegoat in the Islamic party’s refusal to acknowledge the Jewish right to exist. Publicly, the party has said it was willing to enter into hudna, or indefinite truce, once an acceptable Palestinian state had been established. For the Palestinians, recognition is the only lever they feel they hold. They say that if they announce their acceptance of Israel, they can be left high and dry by their wily foe.

In truth, they have good reason for their suspicions. Over the years, Israel has kept them down ruthlessly, perpetrating one of the most draconian occupations in modern history. Time and again, Israel has proved itself to be unreliable, with the full backing of the United States.

Ever since it occupied Palestinian lands in 1967, the official mantra has been ‘land for peace.’

However, as we have seen so often, Israel wants both land and peace. Or if not peace, then at least a cowed and crushed Palestinian people. But as the occupied population has shown again and again, they will not give up without a fight.

The Arab role in this long tragedy has been truly shameful. While paying lip service to Palestinian rights, they have played along with the Israeli occupation, and curried favour with Washington. Even the Saudi royal family, supposedly the guardians of Muslim causes, have fawned over the Americans in order to hang on to their throne.

Unsurprisingly, Muslims around the world view their governments as partners in the Israeli and American crimes in Palestine. Their anger partly feeds into the global jihad that has endangered lives and property around the world. While Western governments are not willing to consider this cause-and-effect threat to their security, preferring to close their eyes to Israeli excesses, the fact is that until the Palestinian issue is not resolved, large numbers of Muslims will continue to be radicalised. Some of them will become brainwashed into joining one terrorist group or another.

This is not to suggest that if the Palestinians get their own state under a fair deal, Al Qaeda and their many offshoots will disappear overnight. Clearly, most of these terrorists are fighting for power, and use a mix of Muslim causes to recruit. Among these, Palestine resonates most powerfully in Muslim minds. People all over the world are angered at the sight of stone-throwing teenagers being gunned down. We were all furious and appalled watching TV images of Palestinians being bombed and rocketed in Gaza last year.

This kind of visceral anger is a powerful recruiting agent. Obama recognises its potency, and is therefore keen to settle this dispute once and for all. For Israel to now snub him so openly is a self-defeating exercise in hubris.