A Palestinian shop owner in Gaza City displays mugs with portraits of US President Barack Obama. (Hatem Omar, Maan Images)

While Palestinians expressed cautious optimism yesterday towards the reaffirmed commitment of Barack Obama to Palestinian statehood and his rejection of Jewish settlement expansion, Israel's new Right-wing government reacted coolly to the US president's pledge.

Mr Obama, in his historic speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, promised to pursue the "legitimate" Palestinian aspiration to an independent state and insisted that its creation was the "the only resolution" to the long-standing conflict with Israel. He said continued Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, territory Palestinians want for their future state, had no legitimacy.

Mr Obama's statements on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute appeared to draw the most attention in his speech because they signified what increasingly appears to be a shift in the Middle East policy of the US - widely viewed as pro-Israel - and addressed a highly emotional issue for many Muslims.

"He is preparing the ground to put pressure on Israel and be serious about the settlements," said Neve Gordon, a political-science professor at Israel's Ben-Gurion University. He added: "If Obama wants to maintain credibility among Muslims, he will have to put his money where his mouth is. He will have to show that he is willing to pressure Israel."

Palestinians welcomed Mr Obama's words and said they were waiting to see whether they would have an impact on the ground. Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, was quoted by news agencies as saying that the speech was a "good start" towards a new US policy. He added that it was "a clear message to Israel that a just peace is built on the foundations of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

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Officials of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip and rivals Mr Abbas's Fatah movement, suggested the speech was encouraging but insufficient.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman of Hamas, against which Israel launched an onslaught in December and January, said: "There is a change between the speech of President Obama and previous speeches made by George Bush." However, he added, "the statements... did not include a mechanism that can translate his wishes and views into actions".

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