Tel Aviv - Jimmy Carter received the Nobel peace prize nearly a quarter of a century after he helped broker the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt. Barack Obama received it nine months into his presidency, even before his administration has succeeded in pushing Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
The Nobel Committee said it chose Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people." It mentioned his nuclear disarmament campaign and his support for international organizations like the United Nations.
But when viewed strictly through the lens of the Middle East, the award comes astonishingly early in the game.
Obama started out with good intentions.
"I have come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," he declared in his June 4 address from Cairo University to the Arab world.
Seeking to assume the role of a more neutral broker than his predecessor George Bush was perceived to be, Obama from the very beginning took a clear, outspoken stance against Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
But some observers now argue that placing the onus on settlements has been counterproductive.
The Obama administration misread Israeli public opinion and underestimated either the ability or willingness of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a total settlement freeze.
Netanyahu would only agree to a temporary and limited moratorium.
Obama had to back down and dealt what critics call an unprecedented blow to the standing of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, by nonetheless compelling him to attend a summit with Netanyahu in New York, and by pressuring the Palestinian leader into backing down regarding a UN report on Israel's Gaza war.
Abbas has faced harsh, emotional and still spiralling internal criticism for his decision to request a deferral of a UN vote on the report by South African judge Richard Goldstone.
"It is clear that he (Obama) made mistakes, which instead of promoting the (peace) process, held it up, harmed it," said Professor Eytan Gilboa, a Middle East and Israel-US relations expert at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies near Tel Aviv.
Obama's focus on settlements from the outset of his term "made it extremely difficult now to say to the Palestinians; 'ok you need to come to negotiate even though there is no complete settlement freeze,'" he told the German Press Agency dpa.
"Mahmoud Abbas has been for years a very weak leader who could not deliver anything and what happened? Under Obama he became even weaker," Gilboa added.
The leading Israeli political scientist - who was expressing a widely held opinion in Israel where according to the most recent poll only 4 per cent of Jews regard Obama as a supporter - put the boomerang effect down to naivety. Asked to rate Obama's performance so far regarding the Middle East conflict, he gave him two out of 10.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders nonetheless said they hoped the prize would further boost Obama's standing, adding weight to his Mideast efforts.
Israeli President Shimon Peres also argued Obama had helped create a more confidence-building atmosphere. "There are few leaders who succeeded in changing the mood in the world in such a short time," he told Obama in a congratulatory telegram.
Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the Nobel prize placed more responsibility on Obama to work for peace in the world, expressing hope it would give him "additional motivation" to push "even harder for peace in our region."
But Gilboa was sceptical. "On the contrary, it will raise even more expectations which are hard to realize," he said.
