My Way News - Stern Obama confronts Israeli, Palestinian leaders
My Way News reports: "Bristling with impatience, President Barack Obama sternly prodded Israeli and Palestinian leaders to relaunch Mideast peace negotiations Tuesday, grasping a newly personal role in their historic standoff. He won an awkward, stone-faced handshake but no other apparent progress beyond a promise to talk about more talks. [...] instead of announcing a new round of peace talks, Obama announced a newly intensified effort to bring them about."

Obama drops demand that Israel freeze settlements - CNN.com
CNN reports: "Prodding Israel and the Palestinian Authority to restart talks aimed at a permanent resolution of their decades-old conflict, President Obama dropped a demand for an Israeli settlement freeze, U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials said."

Comment: I can't tell you how many e-mails I've received telling me that Obama is the one who will bring about Mideast peace...you know what I mean. He isn't the one, he is just another American president going through the motions, there is nothing new here. Take a look a this part of the report:

Despite months of effort, the sides remain far apart on a staunch Palestinian precondition for talks: that Israel halt all construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory. Obama has publicly echoed that demand to Israeli leaders - though the Palestinians noted with displeasure that he used the word "restrain" on Tuesday rather than "halt" or "freeze."

Palestinian preconditions? Are they really suggesting that this stateless people whose "history" dates back a few decades and who have no money or army are setting the terms of Mideast peace talks? That the world superpower and the regions most powerful country are at an impasse because of Palestinian preconditions? It's absurd. The only reason for Mideast peace efforts is to satisfy the untested assumption that Islamic radicalism is based on and promoted by the plight of the Palestinians. Fix that, the world says, and there will be peace. But what if the plight of Palestinian people is only a ruse as far as Islamic grievances are concerned? What if the real problem is the existence of the state of Israel? If that is the case, securing a Mideast peace agreement will do nothing at all to secure real and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Obama will fail because he is working from a false assumption, that there is a desire for peace with Israel when what Israel's neighbors really want is peace without Israel.