Obama's Speech Hits a High Note

Larry King, who about 1000 years old, has the beautiful Queen Noor of Jordan as a guest. Israel and Palestine had a guarded but upbeat response to Obama’s message.

From CNN:

The main themes of the address resonated well with Palestinian and Israeli officials, while a Jewish settlers’ group — upset that Obama spoke against settlement activity — found problems with the speech, and others, like a Hamas official, expressed mixed or negative views.

The government of Israel expressed “hope that this important speech in Cairo will indeed lead to a new period of reconciliation between the Arab and Muslim world and Israel.”

“We share President Obama’s hope that the American effort heralds the beginning of a new era that will bring about an end to the conflict and lead to Arab recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, living in peace and security in the Middle East,” it said.

From NYT:

While Mr. Obama emphasized that America’s bond with Israel was “unbreakable,” he spoke in equally powerful terms of the Palestinian people, describing their plight as “intolerable” after 60 years of statelessness, and twice referring to “Palestine” in a way that put Palestinians on parallel footing with Israelis.

Mr. Obama’s speech in Cairo, which he called a “timeless city,” was perhaps the riskiest of his presidency, as he used unusually direct language to call for a fresh look at deep divisions, both those between Israel and its neighbors and between the Islamic world and the West. Among his messages was a call for Americans and Muslims to abandon their mutual suspicions and do more to confront violent extremism.

But it was Mr. Obama’s empathetic tone toward the Palestinians that attracted the most attention in the region and around the world. His words left many Palestinians and their Arab supporters jubilant but infuriated some Israelis and American backers of Israel because they saw the speech as elevating the Palestinians to equal status. (more…)