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Obama's Message to Israel

Obama's speech to the Muslim world focused on two of the main obstacles to making progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute: violence by Palestinians against Israelis and settlement acitvities by Israelis in the West Bank.

published by
CBS News
 on June 5, 2009

Source: CBS News

President Obama's call for a stop to Israeli settlements in Gaza has set off some political sparks. Michele Dunne explains the administrations motivation for doing so, "One of the things that President Obama did in his speech, was he talked about two of the main obstacles to making progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which are: violence by Palestinians against Israelis and settlement acitvities by Israelis in the West Bank. Those have really deprived Israelis, on one hand, and Palestinians on the other, of confidence in the two-state solution. So I think that Obama thought it was really necessary to lay out the settlement issue as an obtsacle."

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