Mr. Netanyahu has often said that he has three requirements for a deal. The potential for mass smuggling of rockets and other weapons into the Palestinian state must be avoided, Israel must be recognized as the state of the Jewish people by the Palestinian leadership, and the accord must declare a complete end to the conflict. After Tuesday night’s murder by Hamas of four Israeli settlers, Mr. Netanyahu’s focus on the need for security may carry more weight.

Speaking in the White House on Wednesday evening, Mr. Netanyahu said it was crucial that any land Israel turned over for a Palestinian state would not become a “third Iranian-sponsored enclave aimed at the heart of Israel.”

Mr. Abbas has not accepted any of the conditions and has his own set of concerns, notably the need to end Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in what is today Israel. Mr. Netanyahu has flatly rejected those.

Given how little common ground the two leaders have, the outlook for the negotiations has been pessimistic. In addition, Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is mostly to his political right, meaning it could be hard for him to offer the Palestinians much while keeping his government together.

Few political analysts believe that he is willing to risk his coalition by shedding right-wing parties like Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu and putting together a new government with Kadima, the center-left party of the opposition that favors the peace talks. “Netanyahu doesn’t want to risk his position as leader of the right,” said Yohanan Plesner, a member of Parliament from Kadima.

Some in Kadima expect — and hope — that the negotiations will destroy both Likud and the coalition if Mr. Netanyahu takes steps toward the Palestinians. Others, however, say that Kadima itself is vulnerable and that Mr. Netanyahu could lure a good portion of the party into Likud, thereby destroying the opposition.

Either way, Mr. Netanyahu appears to be in an unusually strong position politically. “Netanyahu is at the pinnacle of his political power in a way that no one has been in a generation,” Aluf Benn, an editor and columnist for Haaretz, said on Army Radio on Tuesday. “He has no rival. He can do what he wants.”