POTUS to Abbas: YOU TRICKED ME! THE ISRAELIS HAVE SHOWN ME HOW YOU ROLL!

[The Mikado]

That's pretty fast. Obama didn't find out at all. Well, either that, or he just didn't mind them killing Jews.

More like U.S. politics has this unhealthy belief that our presidents can magickally bring peace to any area of the world if they just try hard enough.  Neither side has much interest in peace right now, largely because neither side believes the other has much interest in peace.  So yeah, if Trump/Tillerson end up not wasting time trying to accomplish something that they can't do, they'll be one up on Obama/Kerry.  Clinton never seemed to pay more than the minimum lip service to finding Mideast peace, but Kerry acted as if he really believed he could do something.

Yeah, neither party has any particular interest in peace at the moment, and Israel especially sees more of an upside to letting the conflict continue in terms of how much land they can grab in settlements.