Thumbs up from me too. I support Israel's right to exist and responsibility to not be enormous assholes to persons of Arabic heritage.

Barack Obama was reelected for good reason. He's a capable man with a knowledge of the world. He's not a southern yahoo.

So..you're admiring him for another speech he made. Well crafted, well delivered... I think we've seen this show before

Pretty much every American president from both parties for 40+ years has attempted to do something about the Israel/Palestine conflict... and gotten mostly nowhere. So, yeah, my expectations were almost nonexistent.

A US president might have some small influence, but a solution can't be imposed from outside. It's kind of like trying to help an addict. Very little an outsider does is going to help unless the addict actually wants to make a change.

More fancy talk but no actions like putting conditions on the billions in aid (plus the above board military aid) given annually to Israel. As long as you are happy with fancy speeches that are opposite to policies implemented, nothing will ever change. At this point, it's so obvious that I wonder how may suffer from Stockholm syndrome.

5, W/o US support over the past six decades, militarily and thru direct financial outlays, Israel would have ceased to exist. Now, however, Israel has used (ours, the US taxpayer's) money to create it's own arm inside the US government, through lobbying and propaganda, that has blurred the lines between the two countries. Who is the dog & who is the tail & who is doing the wagging is a huge subject, I'm not going to condense it into a brief post.

But the idea that our government is 'outside' of Israel is simply not true. We are as wedded to Israel as they are to us.

Here's the deal: the US has always favored the Israelis and so cannot be an honest broker between them. We've spent so many years with a "peace process" that was flawed from the beginning (though still almost succeeded in 2000) that it's no longer viable. A two-state solution would have been nice--ten years ago. It's not possible after the events of the last decade.

My prediction: a 2-state solution will never happen, Israel will become a de facto apartheid society (I mean, even more than they are already), become politically unviable, and we'll eventually have a one-state solution with Palestinians as full citizens in a bi-ethnic state that protects the rights of its two largest communities. About 50 years from now.

That was where a 2-state solution would have taken us eventually anyway (two states, with increasing integration, and final a union after a long period of adjustment), because geographically it's just not sustainable to split that small slice of land into two or more parts.

#3 - and for helping to repair israeli-turkish relations. Tangible results!

Any of you people ever actually been to Israel?

@7, Ew.

@2: Careful now, wasn't some southern yahoo a recent president, with a 'D'?

@Phoebe:You mean the Rhodes Scholar one? That president?

6, 7: actually, prez did (indirectly) touch upon the U.S. aid issue in relation to the settlements in his speech to the students the other day. he's not stupid.

Intern, you are a sycophant for the beguiling golfer.

Let’s actually BE reporters and hold the powerful accountable.

It's easy to shit talk Israel when you are not under a rocket attack.

Barak Obama has openly supported Al Queda factions in both Libya and Syria. Obama is the best thing to happen to Islamic extremist since the Regan Era CIA.

Great line: "The exciting thing about this speech isn't what he said, but that he crafted it well enough that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu wasn't too pissed off to get lunch with him later."

It was a remarkable visit considering that Obama and Netanyahu managed to put on a display of almost chummy unity. Yes, Bibi Netanyahu, long-time Mitt Romney buddy and Israel's Dick Cheney. And yet at the same Obama was able to speak frankly and unequivocally to the Israeli people about the occupation. And to top it off, as Ben Steiner notes, Obama managed to get the Israelis and the Turks talking to each other again.

Now, as successful as this visit was, good luck changing any of those "facts on the ground" where the Israelis have annexed much of the West Bank. Thankfully, America's got its own intractable political problems Obama can focus on. Just think if all that blood, treasure, and energy we've spent on the Middle East which we could instead have channeled homeward. The sad thing is, not only would we be better off if we'd turned inward, but so perhaps would the Middle East.