Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz:

“Israel of 2009 is a country whose language is force. Anwar Sadat may have been the last leader to win our hearts with optimistic, hope-igniting speeches. If he were to visit Israel today, he would be jeered off the stage. The Syrian president pleads for peace and Israel callously dismisses him, the United States begs for a settlement freeze and Israel turns up its nose.”

"Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world."

This Newsweek article says that a majority of Israelis today do not feel the need to pay a price for peace nor do they see the urgency to seek a peaceful settlement.

The way Vice President Joe Biden, a close ally of Israel, was humiliated by Israeli leaders on the same day he was reassuring the israelis of his unlimited personal committmment to Israel, certainly did not help any Syrian to think more positively about any kind of trust-building measures.

A Syrian trust-building measure will not make the same difference in today's highly confident Israel that Sadat's initiative made in the seventies when israelis, still feeling generally vulnerable after the difficult 1973 war, valued the reassuring signals that accompanied Sadat's visit. Israelis will not value a trust building measure as long as they view Syria as a much weaker enemy.

If and when a majority of Israelis, leaders and people, seem to genuinely respect Syria, its people and its right including a committment to peace with Syria that is based on UN resolutions that call for the full return of Syria's occupied Golan Heights, Syria will be quick to acknowledge the new reality through trust building measures and more.