The Corpus Callosum

Personally, I don't care where the embassy is.  But some people care a great deal.  Those who do care will pick up on the comment.  Others are likely to not even notice what she said.  

The Roadmap for Peace, in 2002, called for a series of negotiations to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  The status of Jerusalem was left, deliberately, as a "final status" issue, to be taken up in the third phase (at the end of the roadmap).  This is an extraordinarily contentious issue.  Palin signaled which side she is taking. 

As for American exceptionalism, there is a long history to this.  As explained by Howard Zinn:

The notion of American exceptionalism -- that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a “shining city on a hill.”

The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.

In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians...

...Expanding into another territory, occupying that territory, and dealing harshly with people who resist occupation has been a persistent fact of American history from the first settlements to the present day. And this was often accompanied from very early on with a particular form of American exceptionalism: the idea that American expansion is divinely ordained. [emphasis added]

Wikipedia has more about the concept of American exceptionalism.  It is not always religious.  Coming from Palin, though, it seems likely to be a reference to the religious interpretation.  Her statement about being "unapologetic" is odd.  If she are referring to being a "beacon of hope," why would she even think of being apologetic?  

Taken literally, it makes no sense.  It makes sense only if the phrase is an allusion to something else.  

If she really thinks that America has a divine right to direct the affairs of other peoples, of other nations, then she is a very dangerous person.

Just as the "beacon" comment was recycled from Reagan, so too was the statement, "freedom is always just one generation away from extinction."  From Wikiquote:

• Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.
  • Address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, (1961-03-30).
  • Later variant : Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.
    • California Gubernatorial Inauguration Speech (1967-01-05).

It turns out that Christian religious groups have paraphrased this, saying "The Church is one generation from extinction."   Thus it is a double entendre, alluding both to Reagan, and to Christianity.  It also is a call to battle, of sorts; it is an an assertion that one's way of life is under attack, at risk of being irretrievably lost.  

On a literal level, this is nonsense.  The USA dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, then occupied the entire country.  The Japanese were not free in 1946; now they are.  Poland was taken over by Germany, then by the USSR, in and after World War II.  They were not free, but now they are.  

I suspect that Palin's handlers are styling her to be the next Great Communicator.  I suspect that McCain likes her because he sees her as a straight talker.  She thinks that of herself:

I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.

But I'm being as straight up with Americans as I can

Americans are craving that straight talk

Straight talk is not veiled references,  code words, dog whistles, and double entendres.