The focus of power involving foreign policy is in the National Security Council, not the State Department. The model Obama is following is that of Nixon White house where the hapless Secretary of State William Rogers twisted in the wind for years as Nixon-Kissinger ran foreign policy from the White House.

Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski were advisers to Barack Obama and both are proponents of this model.

I wrote about this months ago here.

Now we are seeing signs of this dynamic at work. This Haaretz article by Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya shows that NSC advisor James Jones is spreading the word about Obama's "get tough" policy with Israel:

Gen. James Jones, national security adviser to President Barack Obama, told a European foreign minister a week ago that unlike the Bush administration, Obama will be "forceful" with Israel.

Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told an AIPAC conference last night that two states for two peoples is the only solution the United States is committed to.

[snip]

Emanuel called for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation if Iran is to be countered effectively.

He said the United States was trying to enter a dialogue with countries such as Syria and Iran, even though it was still unclear whether these countries would alter their behavior. He reiterated that the United States wants to talk with Iran in the hope that Tehran will relinquish its efforts to gain nuclear weapons.

Jones is the main force in the Obama administration stressing the Palestinian question and believes that the United States must become more intensively involved in the matter vis-a-vis both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.