This article was originally published by Ma'an News and is republished with permission.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed hope that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama would play an active role in negotiating a Palestinian-Israeli peace. (Maan Images)

Palestinian and Israeli leaders on Wednesday congratulated U.S. President- elect Barack Obama, expressing optimism for future relations with the soon-to-be American leader.

"President Abbas congratulates [Obama] in his name and in the name of the Palestinian people," the Palestinian leader's spokesperson said as the final votes were tallied across the United States early into Wednesday morning.

Abbas hopes Obama "will speed up efforts to achieve peace, particularly since a resolution to the Palestinian problem and the Israeli-Arab conflict is key to world peace," his aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said.

"We expect change and we hope that that will bring peace for us," Abbas said.

In Israel, a spokesperson for the country's Foreign Ministry said that US-Israeli relations "have a bright future."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert congratulated Obama's win, saying that his election is a testament to America's transparent political system.

"America has proved once again that it is the greatest democracy, which sets an example to all democracies in the world," Olmert said.

"Israel and the U.S. both want to continue strengthening those relations and advancing peace and stability in the Middle East. We have no doubt that the special relations between the two countries will grow stronger during the Obama administration era," he added.

From Gaza, the Hamas movement called on the president-elect to "learn from the mistakes of previous U.S. administrations - and particularly the one headed by George W. Bush - toward the Arab world."

"We want him to support the Palestinian cause, or at least not to be biased towards the Israeli occupation. We have no problem establishing normal relations with the United States [in order] to explain our just cause," said Fawzi Barhum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza City.

Across the wider Middle East, leaders expressed hope that Obama would repair relations and bring about a new era in the troubled region, with many calling on the American president-elect to tackle head-on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We await your constructive participation toward a solution to the Palestinian question and the realization of a just and comprehensive peace, which is the main condition for security and stability in the Middle East," Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak said in an official statement.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, speaking in Europe, called for a "change in the American approach" and expressed hope for a new U.S. policy "based on honest brokership" in addressing the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

Stressing the need for urgent American action in advancing the languishing peace process, Moussa said, "We need a new, strong intervention by the strongest country in the world - the United States - to stop the building of settlements [in the occupied West Bank] immediately."


Additional reporting by the Institute for Middle East Understanding.