Both Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu will be addressing several thousand people next week in Washington at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, and there has been an assumption that the two leaders would meet during Netanyahu’s visit. But the Jerusalem Post reports that several American Jewish leaders say their optimism about a meeting is waning as Netanyahu’s arrival approaches with no meeting announced. Haaretz has a similar report.

The Jewish leaders told the Post that “the White House wanted to be assured it would be receiving something from Netanyahu in return.” Meetings without preconditions are apparently for adversaries, not allies.

Holding a meeting with the prime minister of Israel would be a useful signal to Iran, as the latter continues its rope-a-dope strategy of precondition-less meetings with Obama, that U.S. patience is waning. The signal would be even clearer if it were accompanied by leaks that the longest discussion was devoted to Iran.

But smart diplomacy may not be that smart.

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