Barack Obama & Middle East

OBAMA FOR USA. After a meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on May 18 failed to yield an agreement on the question of Israeli settlements, the administration reiterated in late May that it viewed a complete freeze of construction in settlements on the West Bank as a critical step toward a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli officials publicly rejected Mr. Obama's call for a freeze, saying natural expansion of the settlements should be permitted. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that halting construction in settlements in the West Bank would be equal to "freezing life," and, therefore, "unreasonable."

On June 1, Mr. Obama indicated that he would be more willing to criticize Israel than previous administrations have been.

"Part of being a good friend is being honest," Mr. Obama said in an interview with NPR News. "And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests."

On June 2, Mr. Obama played down the dispute over the settlements and said that he believed the United States was "going to be able to get serious negotiations back on track" between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a speech on June 4 at Cairo University, Mr. Obama pledged to "seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," imploring America and the Islamic world to drop their suspicions of one another and forge new alliances to confront violent extremism and heal religious divides.

He reserved some of his sharpest words for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offered no major initiatives on the Middle East peace process although he put Israelis and Palestinians on notice that he intends to deal directly with what he sees as intransigence on key issues, evoking the concerns of both parties but asking both to shift ground significantly.

The speech in Cairo, which he called a "timeless city," redeemed a promise he made nearly two years ago while running for president. His message was sweeping and forceful -- at times scolding and combative -- promoting democracy in Egypt, warning Israelis against building new settlements, and acknowledging that the United States had fallen short of its ideals, particularly in the Iraq war. Several times he spoke of "Palestine," rather than the more ambiguous term often used by American leaders, "future Palestinian state." And, in reference to the Palestinians, he pointedly mentioned "the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation."

He described the bond between the United States and Israel as "unbreakable," and urged Hamas, the Islamic militant group in control of the Gaza Strip, to stop violence. But in his next breath, Mr. Obama said Israel must curtail its expansion of West bank settlements and recognize Palestinian aspirations for statehood.

Mr. Obama's new formulation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has rekindled fears that he may be fundamentally less pro-Israeli than his predecessors.

He traveled to the former concentration camp of Buchenwald on June 6 and criticized those who denied the Holocaust. The step was widely seen as a slap at President Ahmadinejad of Iran, a vehement denier.

On June 14, Mr. Netanyahu endorsed for the first time the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but on condition that the state was demilitarized and that the Palestinians recognized Israel as the state of the Jewish people. But he firmly rejected the American demands for a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. And even his assent on Palestinian statehood, given the caveats, was immediately rejected as a nonstarter by Palestinians. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement that Mr. Obama "welcomes the important step forward" in Mr. Netanyahu's speech.