The second reason is specific to the Obama administration, which has shown itself remarkably unfriendly to Israel so far:
–President Obama began his Mideast policy with a speech in Cairo in which he compared the Holocaust to Palestinian suffering in pursuit of a homeland.
–Then he adopted the position — more extreme than that of the Palestinians themselves at the time — that any Israeli construction beyond the Green Line was an ‘obstacle to peace’, and in March 2010 orchestrated a break with Israel over the announcement by a local authority of plans to build apartments in an existing Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.
–Obama then summoned PM Netanyahu to Washington and abandoned him in a White House conference room while he went to have dinner with his family. There were no photo-ops; the whole affair seemed designed to humiliate the PM in a way which was unprecedented.
–In May of 2011, Obama produced a “peace proposal” which moved US policy significantly closer to the Arab position and away from Israel. If implemented, it would be a disaster for Israel. Netanyahu was on a plane to the US when the speech was delivered, and he did not receive a heads-up beforehand.
If you were PM Netanyahu and were deciding whether you could entrust the West in general, and this US administration in particular, with the physical survival of your country, what would you do?