U.S. President Barack Obama never stood a chance. It was not Israeli public opinion he had to conquer, not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to persuade. His assignment was to break down the iron wall of Israeli political commentators, and that is a mission impossible even for a statesman of his caliber.

Barely did he finish his resounding speech before it was engulfed in waves of sour, skeptical, judgmental negativity from our studio analysts. If anyone tries to talk about hope, peace and justice, they’ll tell you how “naive” and “childish” it is. After all, these carefully selected studio pundits − experienced journalists, university professors, retired army generals − know their stuff. They always say what is expected of them. ‏(Otherwise they won’t be invited back.‏) They generally know everything, and they did not disappoint.

They know things that we simple listeners, who thrilled to Obama’s words, do not. They are graduates of the Israeli education system, which taught them that in 1948 we were the few against the many ‏(a lie‏) and that all the refugees fled from their villages ‏(another lie‏). To them, the nakba is no more than a Palestinian PR stunt. So is the occupation.

As adults these pundits cozied up to the politicians, from whom they learned that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak left no stone unturned in his desire to make peace ‏(a lie‏) and that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the moon ‏(another lie‏); that there is no Palestinian partner for peace and that Israel is a peace-loving nation ‏(lie, lie‏).

Our pundits have met few, if any, Palestinians. They have never been to the occupied territories and they have no idea of the damage Israel is doing there. Nor do they know much about international opinion other than that it is anti-Semitic, of course.

The Arab affairs commentator, by the way, is always Jewish, as if there were no Arab intellectuals or commentators in Israel. The occasional Palestinian interviewee will always be treated dismissively and patronizingly.

Our analysts do not believe in peace, because there is no one ‏(on the Arab side‏) to make peace with and nothing to make peace over. They know only that all Arabs want to destroy us, or at the very least to throw us into the sea. After all, they “know” the Arabs.

Our military analysts can magnify every danger, from a collection of rusty rifles captured on a rickety boat at sea to Iranian weapons transported in tunnels to Hamas and up to the goings-on in Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. They know that a very, very strong Israel is the only solution.

But then the U.S. president came and tried to reshuffle the deck, to raise ideas of the like that have not even been considered in these parts.

The response was immediate. First, the generals stormed the radio and television studios. Why generals, when the talk was of hope and justice? What do they have to do with these concepts? Don’t we have enough of the generals when Israel attacks the Gaza Strip and calls it “war”? Why are we seeing Israel Ziv, Aharon Zeevi Farkash and of course the immortal Giora Eiland yet again? What could they possibly understand about what Obama is trying to tell us? After all, anchorman Danny Kushmaro’s berating of Obama for not mentioning “Palestinian violence against the settlers” was sufficient to bring us back to earth.

Then came the insights: Obama is “cold” and “calculated,” America is becoming isolationist, the speech was just a speech − and that’s without mentioning all the threats we face, just in case you forgot.

Anyone who tried to speak differently − American-studies scholar Yael Sternhell or international commentator Arad Nir − were roundly disparaged by those who understand these things. And really, how naive it was of you to be amazed and even moved by Obama. Nir said he had to choke back tears, more’s the shame. But trust our analyst to put an end to that.

Obama’s speech, approximately 50 minutes of hope, may have created a crack in the Israeli consciousness. But immediately afterward came the panels discussions, a blend of cynicism and Zionism trapped in their own stories like a mirror image of all the barriers Obama tried to break down. You wanted hope? You’ll get Eiland. He’ll explain the facts of life to you.