Peace In The Middle East Is Welcome

"You can be the generation ..."

After so many useless deaths in too many countries, one has to welcome the words of President Obama spoken to the youth of Israel.

It seemed as if he was saying the older guys can't seem to get there, but you can.

Those young people were open to a peaceful co-existence with Palestinians, so in a way he was preaching to the choir in a war-torn region that no doubt needs to experience at least the absence of war.

It was a refreshing use of words:

President Barack Obama made a powerful and impassioned argument for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, telling an audience of young Israelis that their generation bore responsibility for securing a secure, stable and democratic future for the conflict-ridden land.

In what was billed as the most important public speech ever made by an American leader on the issue, Obama delivered a tough message to Israel, saying hard choices had to be faced and risks must be taken.

"You can be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream, or you can face growing challenges to its future … The only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realisation of an independent and viable Palestine," he said.

(Guardian). The problem is regional enough to cause difficulties in other nations around Israel, including Jordan for example:

JORDANIANS go to the polls on January 23rd, the day after the Israeli election, but for people of Palestinian origin, who make up a majority in Jordan and a large minority (at least a fifth) in Israel, there are disarming similarities apart from the timing. Increasing numbers of them are likely to boycott the polls in despair at systems that seem designed to keep them out.

Jordanians of Palestinian descent make up less than a tenth of the parliament’s members, thanks to gerrymandering. In two mainly Palestinian districts of Amman, the capital, 310,000 voters elect as many MPs as 122,000 tribesmen in Karak, a southern town where Bedouin predominate. “It’s not the ballots that are rigged as much as the system itself,” says Ahmad Obeidat, one of several former prime ministers who, alongside the kingdom’s largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, is calling for a boycott of the poll.

(The Economist). The foreign policy of the U.S. in the distant past was more helpful to a broader middle east peace than it has been during the decade or so of the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libyan wars.

Tensions over Syria and Iran have not helped.

So, this presidential endeavor on its face is hopefully a new direction in foreign policy, a policy movement away from The W Direction.

The Guardian article, quoted from above, went on to point out that "necessary diplomacy which secretary of state John Kerry will begin after Obama's departure from Jerusalem on Friday" is the next phase of the effort.