THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama has vowed to seize "a historic opportunity" in the Middle East, pledging US support for human rights in the Middle East and serving notice on leaders who have "turned to repression to remain in power".
The wide-ranging speech from the State Department in Washington, the seat of American diplomacy, was billed by the White House as the most important one by Mr Obama since his address to the Muslim world in Cairo two years ago.
He sought for the first time to align the United States with the "Arab Spring" of uprisings across the Middle East that the White House has been reluctant to embrace fully, proclaiming that America has "a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self determination of individuals" in the region.
Mr Obama compared the upheaval in the Middle East and Africa to the American Revolution and the Civil Rights movement, stating that the US was "founded on the believe that people should govern themselves."
"Sometimes, in the course of history, the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has built up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat."
Mr Obama was more explicit about the parameters of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that ever before. He told Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli premier, that Israel had to accept the Palestinian demand for it to accept the 1967 borders, insisting that a Jewish state "cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation" of Palestinian lands. » | Toby Harnden, Washington | Thursday, May 19, 2011
