Every where he goes he woos. Journalists are running out of superlatives to describe crowd and other reactions to his finely tuned, highly strategic and touch-all-bases utterances. It has become the Obama trademark.

"The timeless city of Cairo" was no different. In a highly anticipated speech on his first Middle East trip, United States President Barack Hussein Obama signalled a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world", rejecting the view that America and Islam are in competition. The choice of Egypt was itself significant.

"Egypt has the clout to bestow legitimacy on any idea - and to change the direction in the region," says the award-winning journalist and Yale Fellow, Robin Wright, in her 2008 book, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East. "In shaping the Middle East over the last century, Egypt rallied other Arabs to make war on Israel, but could then defy Arab sentiment to make peace with its Jewish neighbour."

In Egypt, Obama chided Israel over its settlement policy, publicly disagreed with European countries such as France on Muslim women wearing veils in public, and implicitly criticised the repressive Egyptian state for its scorn of democracy. Countries like Saudi Arabia which repress religious rights and disallow non-Muslim preaching were also implicitly criticised.

spoke for palestinians

Obama also spoke forthrightly for the cause of the Palestinians and of their right to statehood. "The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," he told his cheering audience. "And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own." The Palestinians, he noted, "endure the daily humiliations, large and small, which come with occupation".

Of course, he spoke out against Palestinian violence and strongly attacked the views of those, including the Iranian president, who do not accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

Only the right-wing was displeased with the speech, as to many it was too soft on Iran, too undiplomatic towards Israel, and it downplayed the threat of Islam, as Obama roundly rejected Samuel Huntington's 'class of civilisations' thesis which had gained wide acceptance, especially in right-wing secular and religious circles.

Some see Obama as a kind of 'saviour' to the Middle East, the man who will finally defuse the Middle East time bomb. We must be fair to George W. Bush in stating that his administration came a far way in adopting a responsible Middle East strategic vision. Knock the administration in terms of practice or what it was able to accomplish (and it is left to be seen how Obama will translate his own words into practice).

But it must be noted, in fairness to history, that George W. Bush did call for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. Indeed, Bush himself said that "Israeli settlement in the occupied territories must stop." Bush has worked closely with the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to fashion a Road Map to Peace, which is a good document.

The United Sates has to move from rhetoric to action in putting pressure on Israel to stop its settlement activities, while at the same time ensuring that Israel's security is not jeopardised and that the Palestinians refrain from violence.

America has the power to apply the pressure on Israel if it chooses to do so.

Israel now receives an average of US$3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, approximately one-sixth of America's total foreign assistance budget. Some 75 per cent of this is military aid. In per capita terms, this amounts to $500 for each Israeli citizen.

By comparison, the nation which receives the second-highest US foreign assistance support, Egypt, receives $20 per person. Interestingly, Israel is the only recipient of US economic assistance which does not have to account for how its money is spent. And its annual $3 billion assistance is in addition to the loan guarantees which it gets from the US.

middle east powder keg

The Israeli-Palestinian issue represents the powder keg in that whole Middle East drama. It is central to everything. All the concerns about Iran, the security of oil supplies in the Persian Gulf, Al-Qaeda and terrorism, as well as the threat from radical Islam, come back largely to the issue of the Palestinians. It is a fact that Islam has deep philosophical problems with the hedonism and materialism of the west, and that radical Muslims are deeply offended by alcohol-drinking, sexually permissive, pleasure-oriented westerners.

Islam would still have issues with the West even if the Palestinian issue were solved, but the fact remains that the denial of the Palestinians of their right to statehood and the oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories has been a major source of anger, resentment and bitterness all over the Middle East, and has provided the glue to bind otherwise deeply factious Muslim sects and minorities.

strong case

If the Palestinian issue were resolved, a major source of tension between America and the Arab world would disappear and the magnet for recruits to radical Islam would be no more. In their highly controversial 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, two renowned foreign policy scholars, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, make a strong case for the strategic liability of Israel to US foreign policy. In their view, it is largely the lobby strength and financial and political power of American Jewry which has kept the special relationship between the US and Israel to what they could consider the irrational level that it is.

And this special relationship between America and Israel has been the major source of its alienation in the Arab street (for even when client states support America, their peoples are strongly opposed to American foreign policy. After World War I and right up to the 1960s when US-Israeli relationship deepened, America had a positive image in the Arab world as a Great Power that was not colonialist like Britain, France and Russia. Arab animosity to the US increased as US support for Israel grew and that hostility heightened after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

The oil weapon which was detonated after the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 was a direct response to Nixon's decision to provide Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency military assistance during the war. Mearsheimer and Walt say the embargo and production decrease cost the United States $48.5 billion, or the equivalent of US$140 billion in year 2000 dollar value.

It is popularly held that Israel was strategically important to the US during the Cold War when the Arab world was actively courted and largely in love with the Soviet Union. Israel was, therefore, an important counterbalancing force in the Middle East and a beacon of democracy in a totalitarian sea. But even former secretary of state Henry Kissinger admitted in a memorandum quoted in The Israel Lobby that, "Israeli strength does not prevent the spread of communism in the Arab world. So it is difficult to claim that a strong Israel serves American interests because it prevents the spread of Communism in the Arab world."

israel's strategic value

And even if Israel were an important ally against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, that war is now over, so what is Israel's strategic value today? Well, the war on terror, of course. But many believe that excessive American support for Israel worsens America's vulnerability to terrorist threats. After September 11, bin Laden's mother was quoted as saying her son "became concerned, sad and frustrated about the situation in Palestine in particular and the Arab and Muslin world in general".

And bin Laden's first pubic statement, released December 29, 1994, directly addressed the Palestinian issue. "Bin Laden also condemned the United States on several occasions prior to September 11 for its support for Israel against the Palestinians and called for jihad against America on this basis," say Mearsheimer and Walt. (For a counter view to their position, see Dinesh Desouza's The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.)

The debates will go on about the value of Israel to the US, but one thing most can agree on: the sooner the Israeli-Palestinian issue is settled, the better for the international community.

The Palestinians must renounce violence and terrorist acts; Hamas must recognise the existence of Israel, and Israel must cease its settlements and negotiate for peace. Some realists say what faces America is, as Professor Lawrence Friedman's magisterial 2008 book is titled, A Choice of Enemies (with the sub-title America Confronts the Middle East). Some doubt that there can be any comprehensive solution to the problems of the Middle East.

must be addressed

But the Palestinian issue has to be addressed. There also has to be a sensible policy towards Iran. I believe Obama has the correct approach. Bush's policy of "not talking to enemies" was misguided. Obama was right in that Cairo speech to acknowledge the right of Iran to have nuclear power once it submits to inspections under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Fareed Zakaria, foreign editor of Newsweek, has maintained that Iran is a rational, calculating actor. (See his 'What you know about Iran is wrong' in the June 1 issue of Newsweek). Fareed says Iran may not really want a bomb. And he quotes the man with the real power in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying going for nuclear weapons is "un-Islamic".

Ahmadinejad is not representative of the whole of Iran. There are significant moderate forces there and, depending on what happens in the elections, things could change for the better. Ahmadinejad is a fascist, a religious fanatic and a man who should be nowhere near power. But he does not have total power, contrary to misinformed westerners.

Obama's policy of engagement with Iran is right and we should see positive results of this softening. If he can maintain his delicate balancing act in Middle East policy - as well as his firmness when needed - we could see some improvement in America's image in that troubled region.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.