Distancing of political relations?

I am continually growing disheartened over the long term workability of the offensive in Gaza. It's not that I'm starting to have second thoughts on whether we need to remove Hamas. It's that it seems that more and more Palestinian civilians are dying and less and less militants. It is possible that many of the civilians are actually gunmen or militants who are either off-duty or simply in disguise. But numbers going as high as 45% on the rate of civilian casualties does not bode well for Israel's public image in the Middle East, especially when Jordanian protesters are pushing for the king to review political ties to Israel. 

What has me most worried, however, is this article, where it is said that, according to president Bush, last year he stopped the Israeli's from striking at Iran's nuclear facilities. 

What I want to know is, if this happened last year, then when? Why is the press being so vague in determining an actual time frame? And why is this now being leaked to the media, at a time when Israel is in a vulnerable position from its allies? Israeli-U.S. partnership is a long since foregone conclusion and it seems that the U.S. is now backing out of that position to leave the Israelis out in the cold.

The timing of the situation seems to be intended to distance the U.S. from Israel politically while at the same time doing even further damage to Israel's image in the eyes of the more moderate Arab powers.

Why, America, do you wish to hurt Israel rather than advise your long-time ally to be careful when firing shells from those tanks?

I hope I'm wrong about this situation and it can be explained very easily.