The Strange and Contradictory Perceptions of the Obama Speech on Israel: What did the President Really Say?

Ron Radosh "The different responses to President Barack Obama’s speech from the mainstream media show something very revealing: everyone still projects their own assumptions about what Obama means and believes onto the president.... they still put forth their own beliefs and projected them onto Obama."
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One view:

“[The Obama speech was a] strong reaffirmation of the U.S.-Israel relationship and represented an important and positive change” from his remarks Thursday. “By adding a whole section to the speech that was missing on Thursday, President Obama put himself in line with presidents since Lyndon Johnson who have said again and again, Israel cannot go back to the 1949/1967 lines,” Block said. ‘This is an important and crucial change from what he said last week.”

"Others have pointed out, however, that if read carefully the Obama speech in fact did not say that Israel was right to refuse to negotiate with a Palestinian state that has signed an agreement with Hamas. That in fact, he went on in his speech to argue that despite this reality, they must do so because peace is a necessity that cannot be put on the backburner because of the new alliance. That is, indeed, the essence of Obama’s approach — to take back what he just said one sentence after he said it, so that both sides will find the kind of reassurance that they seek."
Another view:

...one must look at how the Palestinian Authority took Obama’s speech: did they see it as one friendly to Israel, as the president’s supporters claim? Look no further than the statement released by chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat: that they would not resume peace negotiations unless Israel accepts the ’67 border guidelines mentioned by the president. In other words, what might be determined in final status negotiations is now, according to Fatah, to be accepted first as a starting point before negotiations are to take place! What should be then negotiated?

Is it a trait of Democrat presidents, that their every sentence must be parsed to figure out what they really meant?

Corrupt Language Breeds Bad History and Bad Policy  "As the history of communism and fascism both illustrate, modern political tyranny has relied on fabricated history to legitimize its claims and actions, and such history in turn relies on the debasement of language. Nowhere is this axiom more evident than in the conflict between Israel and the Arabs — so much so that, as Obama’s recent remarks about Israel show, the false history and its false vocabulary are now taken for reality and made the basis of policy."....
"The misleading and false language used to describe the conflict between Israel and the countries that have tried to destroy it obscures the actual causes of Arab hatred of Israel, which in turn creates bad policies pursuing false solutions. A Palestinian state will not bring peace to the region, for the simple reason that a critical mass of Arabs does not want Israel to exist." Bruce S. Thornton  (Emphasis added.)

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