The speech was full of happy thoughts and no new ideas.

He asked Israel to make more concessions and didn't ask the Arabs to do anything. This cannot lead to peace. How could it?

Churchill's speeches brought peace because they pointed out what the enemy did and why we had to fight him. He did NOT just give in completely.

This is far too alarmist and completely wrong in that Obama is not sacrificing US interests at all.

At least a beginning has been made.

I think you judge the man too harshly. Afterall, he is talking Peace with the Arab/ Muslim world after nearky 5 decades of overt and covert hostility. Let us see how it all pans out.

I thought he asked hamas et al to agree that Isreal has a right to exist and to stop killing Israelis?  Would that not lead to peace?

And even more important than what he said: what will he do?

What will Obama do when Hamas do not listen to him? Will he finally stop financial aid to Gaza? The US and EU promised to give no aid to Hamas as per Israel's and the PLO's request, but ever since Hamas violently took control of Gaza, aid to Gaza has only increased.

And what if the Jews continue to be born and live in the West-Bank, an area designated "Jew-free" by the UN. What will Obama do then?

(I don't have to ask what Obama would do if Arabs continue to be born and live in Israel, since that has never been a problem like Jews being born in living in the rest of the middle east.)

And finally, not killing Israelis is not enough. Hamas should also be asked to stop killing supporters of the PLO, supporters of any other group, and Christians in general.

I still don't understand why the world screamed "Death to the Jews" when Israel killed 1300 people, most of whom terrorists, while the same world was quiet when Hamas murdered innocent Christians and dissenting Muslims totalling the same numbers.

Obama didn't even address that problem in his speech.

(He did, however, make it clear to Tom Brokaw in Germany that he rejects the media's attempt to compare Israel to Nazi Germany. But he doesn't seem to have much of a spine. He says whatever he thinks people want to hear in whatever country he is in. In Germany though people would have been glad to hear that Jews are Nazis. Takes away the guilt, especially the guilt of having been allied with the Palestinian Arabs during World War II.)

I think he should have mentioned how the US time and again give the lives of their own soldiers to save Muslims, like in Kosovo and Bosnia (from the Serbs), in Iraq (from Saddam and Al-Qaeda), and Afghanistan (from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda).

Then he should have said that the US gets nothing but hatred in return.

He should have said that there is indeed a war between "Islam" and the west and that there will be until "Islam" ends it.

Then he should have announced that he would withdraw all American troops from the Gulf and "Saudi-Arabia" as a positive signal towards Iranian expansionists.

He shouldn't even have mentioned Israel. It's the smallest conflict in the region, it deserves the least attention.

The rest of the speech should have focused on Darfur.

I still think that an African-American President should be the one who actually helps Africans for once. George Bush was fairly good about Africa, but Obama seems to forget the continent again.

That's interesting term for the Arab attack on Israel with the goal of "throwing the Jews into the sea".

Who were the "Palestinians" back then anyway?

Well, I do hope he is not making a "new beginning". I was just getting used to the entire thing calming down after Bush took out Saddam, the PLO's biggest financial supporter, and ended the civil war in Sudan.

If Obama really restarts the conflict, we will be in for another few years after we have been so close to peace now.

I agree 100%, for the sake of the world and the generations to come; peace is needed.

Not now. Not yet. But if the Arabs are not stopped from killing hundreds of thousands of Africans, what will stop them from trying the same thing with us when they have the chance?

It is true that we are not Africans so when they come after the Africans, why should we speak up?

And then maybe they will come after the Jews next, when Israel falls, and the west will not speak up.

But what happens when they come after the west? Will anybody be left to speak up?

The issue here is that the rest of the world handed over Sudan to Arab rulers. we handed over millions of Africans to their murderers. It is our responsibility.

You should hear me talk about Germans in the context of World War 2.

That's pretty much it.

At some point it gets tiresome to add a disclaimer to every sentence. And I have seen lots of people refer to agents of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany during World War 2 as "Germans" without anyone ever thinking that hatred for Hitler's policies or ideology constitutes some sort of irrational anti-German bigotry.

Similarly "the Japanese" were America's enemy in World War 2, and "the Chinese" were enemies in Korea (despite the fact that the "Republic of China", i.e. Taiwan) was fighting on America's side.

Those who call it an "Arab-Israeli conflict" certainly don't mean to say that every single Israeli and every single citizen of an Arab country are involved in individual spit fights.

For what it's worth, my favourite Israeli politician is an Arab. And his views of "the Arabs" (i.e. the agents of Arab governments and their supporters) and what to do with terrorists (not the same as Arabs) are pretty much the same as mine.

(Incidentally, I am German and my views of what to do with German Nazis are pretty much those as well.)

That is a good point.

However, the world will at some point have to get used to the fact that one can speak about the Arabs like almost everyone thinks they ought to speak about Israel. The important difference is that the claims I make about the Arabs (i.e. agents of Arab nationalist regimes) are true.

There really is a genocide going on in Sudan. And there really exists slavery in Arab countries. It is not bigotry to point that out.

Usually, the way it works is that someone makes some claim about Israel and then complains that "criticism of Israel" is called "anti-Semitism", hence giving oneself permission to propagate whatever lie about Israel one happens to like best, since "criticism of Israel" isn't anti-Semitism. And voila, all the old stories about the Jews are back, packaged into a "it's not the Jews, it's Israel" package.

On the other hand, saying bad things about "the Arabs" is bigotry, even if the statements are true.

It is a fact that _the Arabs_, the same Arab League who criticise Israel for its "inhumane treatment" of the "Palestinians", commit and condone the murder of hundreds of thousands of Africans and the enslavement of Christian Africans. I think it is plain racism to ignore that fact when one decides to believe their claims about the evils of Israel.