Obama backs Palestine over border demands

Forcefully stepping into an explosive Middle East debate, President Barack Obama has endorsed a key Palestinian demand for the borders of its future state and prodded Israel to accept that it can never have a truly peaceful nation based on "permanent occupation."

Obama's urging that a Palestinian state be based on 1967 borders - before the Six Day War in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza - was a significant shift in the US approach. It drew an immediate negative response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is to meet Obama at the White House on Friday.

In a statement released late on Thursday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu called the 1967 lines "indefensible," saying such a withdrawal would jeopardise Israel's security and leave major West Bank settlements outside Israeli borders, though Obama left room for adjustments reached through negotiations.

At the same time, it was not immediately clear whether Obama's statement on the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations - something the Palestinians have long sought - would be sufficient to persuade the Palestinians to drop their push for UN recognition of their statehood. Obama rejected the Palestinians' unilateral statehood bid on Thursday as he sought to underscore US support for Israel notwithstanding the endorsement of the 1967 borders.

"Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state," Obama said.

Obama's comments came in his most comprehensive response to date to the uprisings sweeping the Arab world. Speaking at the State Department, he called for the first time for the leader of Syria to embrace democracy or move aside, though without specifically demanding his ouster.

As he addressed audiences abroad and at home, Obama sought to leave no doubt that the US stands behind the protesters who have swelled from nation to nation across the Middle East and North Africa, while also trying to convince American viewers that US involvement in unstable countries halfway around the world is in their interest, too.

Obama said the United States has a historic opportunity and the responsibility to support the rights of people clamouring for freedoms, and he called for "a new chapter in American diplomacy."

"We know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security; history and faith," the president said.

He hailed the killing of al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and declared that bin Laden's vision of destruction was fading even before US forces shot him dead.

Obama said the "shouts of human dignity are being heard across the region."

The president noted that two leaders had stepped down - referring to Egypt and Tunisia - and said that "more may follow." He quoted civilian protesters who have pushed for change in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen - though without noting that among those nations, only Egypt has seen the departure of a long-ruling autocratic leader.

Obama said that while there will be setbacks accompanying progress in political transitions, the movements present a valuable opportunity for the US to show which side it is on. "We have a chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of a dictator," he said, referring to the fruit vendor who killed himself in despair and sparked a chain of events that unleashed uprisings around the Arab world.

On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the president cautioned that the recent power-sharing agreement between the mainstream Palestinian faction led by Mahmoud Abbas and the radical Hamas movement that rules Gaza "raises profound and legitimate" security questions for Israel. Netanyahu has refused to deal with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

"How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognise your right to exist?" Obama asked. "In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question."