Barack Obama, the US president, has laid out his vision for the Middle East and North Africa during a key speech in Washington.
On the issue of Palestine, Obama said: "The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states.
"The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.
"As for security, every state has the right to self-defence, and Israel must be able to defend itself – by itself – against any threat."
Israeli Reaction
Reacting to the address shortly afterwards, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said a Palestinian state should not be established at the "expense of Israeli existence". He appreciated the US president’s address but rejected any withdrawal tp "indefensible" 1967 borders.
Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from Jerusalem, said: "In different parts of his speech Obama shifted from a view closer to the Israeli approach to negotiations and at other times closer to the Palestinian approach.
"He supported the Palestinian’s idea of territorial contingency – meaning that the Israelis would have to withdraw from some of the settlement blocks in order for the Palestinian state to be viable and enjoy that contingency.
"He also talked about settlement construction had to stop. That is obviously another thing the Palestinians would like to hear from Obama.
"Obama more importantly talked about the status quo and how it was unsustainable. That is bad news for [Binyamin] Netanyahu [the Israeli prime minister].
"On the other hand, Obama supported other approaches of the Israelis that they share in common.
"In that Jerusalem will be discussed later … refugees will be discussed later … the Palestinian state has to be demilitarized … Israel must enjoy security."
Obama’s speech came a day ahead of a visit to Washington by Netanyahu.
On Thursday, the Israeli interior ministry requested and received the approval of Netanyahu’s office ahead of his US visit to begin holding hearings on an additional 1,550 housing units in the settlements of Har Homa and Pisgat Ze’ev, both located beyond the 1967 borders.
Obama must take "concrete steps" not issue "slogans," the Palestinian Hamas movement said on Thursday following the president’s speech.
Hamas Response
"What Obama needs to do is not to add slogans but to take concrete steps to protect the rights of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation," said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman.
During his address to the US state department on Thursday, Obama said Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, must either lead his country through a democratic transition or "get out of the way".
Obama said Syria’s brutal crackdown on pro-reform activists was unacceptable.
He said Assad could no longer rule through repression and must change course if he wants international acceptance.
More than 850 people are believed to have been killed in two months of unrest in Syria.
Obama’s speech came a day after he imposed sanctions on Assad and six other officials for human rights abuses during the crackdown.
The president said two leaders in the region had stepped down and that more may follow. The president also said the future of the US was bound to the region.
Iran ‘Meddling’
Turning to Bahrain and Yemen, Obama said: "We must acknowledge that our friends in the region have not all reacted to the demands for change consistent with the principles that I have outlined today.
"That is true in Yemen, where President [Ali Abdullah] Saleh needs to follow through on his commitment to transfer power. And that is true, today, in Bahrain.
"We have insisted publically and privately that mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain’s citizens, and will not make legitimate calls for reform go away.
"The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.
"The government must create the conditions for dialogue, and the opposition must participate to forge a just future for all Bahrainis."
The president also said that Iran had "tried to take advantage of the turmoil there".
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Cairo, said the speech basically translated to "democracy good, repression bad".
"He slapped a few American allies, saying if people want change you can’t stand in the way," Fisher said.
Economic Investment
Addressing the death of Osama bin Laden, the president said the al-Qaeda leader was a mass murderer, not a martyr, whose ideas were being rejected even before he was killed.
Turning to Libya, he said: "In Libya, we saw the prospect of imminent massacre, had a mandate for action, and heard the Libyan people’s call for help.
"Had we not acted along with our NATO allies and regional coalition partners, thousands would have been killed."
Obama also laid out a major economic initiative in the Middle East to encourage democratic change in the region, beginning with Tunisia and Libya.
The president said the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US government agency, "will soon launch a $2bn facility to support private investment across the region".
"And we will work with allies to refocus the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development so that it provides the same support for democratic transitions and economic modernisation in the Middle East and North Africa as it has in Europe," he said,
(Al Jazeera and agencies)
