Eight years after Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu first met as leaders of their respective nations, the two men held what portends to be their farewell meeting in New York where they are attending the opening sessions of the United Nations General Assembly. The most contentious topic the pair discussed was doubtless the continued presence of Israeli communities on land Israel conquered in the 1967 war that the Palestinians claim for their future state. Despite a strong international consensus in favor of the Palestinian narrative, Netanyahu continues to try to convince the world that the issue preventing an Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement is not that of “settlements,” but rather the refusal by Palestinians to recognize Israel as “the Jewish state” and the Palestinian insistence that its diaspora has the right to return to what is now Israel. While there were those who questioned why the meeting would take place at all given the virtually automatic repetition of arguments by both men, observers believe that the answer is two-fold: first, the opportunity to discuss the situation in Syria and perhaps update contingency plans relative to the Iranian nuclear deal. But secondly, many believe Netanyahu and his colleagues are concerned by the specter of a grand gesture by Obama before leaving office in the form of support (read withholding the US veto) for a Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian situation that Jerusalem finds untenable. Given the apparent contrition displayed by Netanyahu in his dealings with Obama since the US president thoroughly decimated the coalition assembled to defeat the Iranian deal that included the prime minister, US Republicans and much of the pro-Israel community – as evidenced by Netanyahu’s capitulation to caveats inserted by Obama into the military aid agreement that analysts called “outrageous” – it’s likely that unlike in their first meeting after which it was reported that Obama was annoyed by the Israeli’s penchant for “lecturing,” that this time, Netanyahu was listening.