Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst, co-founder and co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian internet dialogue bitterlemons.org and Middle East roundtable bitterlemons-international.org. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior official with the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency. His views do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for Peace Now or Peace Now.

Q. Does President Barack Obama's Cairo speech of last week bring us any closer to a peace process, and especially to a successful peace process?

A. At a very general level, I would answer "yes" to both questions. Obama's speech was designed to position the United States better in its efforts to influence events in the Middle East by leveling the US-Arab and US-Muslim playing field. It appears to have made a contribution toward that goal--how great a contribution, only time will tell.

Much has already been written about the ways in which the speech sought to address Arab and Muslim grievances toward America (to the striking extent of acknowledging that in 1953 the US "played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government") and identify Washington as a friend of Arab and Muslim peoples--though not necessarily of regimes and leaders, who were criticized, albeit without naming names.

I won't repeat that discussion, except to offer two comments. On the one hand, at the end of the day Washington has to be able to influence Arab and Muslim regimes as well as the street, or public opinion. On the other, would it be farfetched to speculate that the vision of a US administration that Arabs can be proud to work with helped persuade Lebanese to stick with a pro-western leadership and reject Hezbollah in Sunday's parliamentary elections? Could this work in Iran in this Friday's presidential elections?

Yet at a more specific level, Obama really seemed to be explaining, through both omission and the demands he made on the relevant parties, that a lot of work remains before Arab-Israel peace processes can resume and certainly before they can succeed.

First of all, in focusing heavily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the speech ignored the potential for a peace process with Syria , which was never mentioned at all. This reflects ongoing administration demands, inherited from the Bush administration, that Syria substantively improve its behavior regarding Iraq , Lebanon and Hezbollah. While Washington is engaging Damascus on these issues and sending emissaries to make its point, clearly not enough progress had been made by last Thursday to warrant even a brief mention of Syria or of the potential for a Syria-Israel peace process, which some observers assess could be more promising under present circumstances than an Israeli-Palestinian process.

Second, the Arab Peace Initiative, which had appeared until the speech to figure prominently in Obama's calculations regarding an integrated peace process and effort to deal with Iran and facilitate US withdrawal from Iraq, was dismissed in a single, very significant sentence: "The Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities." In other words, the Arab states must contribute more to a successful peace process.

This was one of a number of statements that seemed to be "friendly" to PM Binyamin Netanyahu and his coalition in an effort to balance US demands to recognize the two-state solution and freeze settlement construction. Another was a set of references by Obama regarding the need for the Palestinian people to "develop the institutions that will sustain their state" and for the Palestinian Authority to "develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of the people". This sounded like an endorsement of Netanyahu's "bottom up" approach to dealing with the Palestinians, which emphasizes institution-building and economic investment and seemingly postpones Palestinian statehood to a later stage.

Obama also refused to budge in his attitude toward engaging Hamas, insisting that it must first endorse the Quartet's three demands: recognition of Israel 's right to exist, ending violence and accepting existing agreements. While he did call upon Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza , Obama, who understands that only a united Palestinian delegation representing both Hamas and Fateh can negotiate effectively with Israel , continued to project such a high standard for legitimization of Hamas that the likelihood of a Palestinian unity government emerging in the near future appears low.

Finally, Obama offered no specific peace plan of his own. That might come at a later date. Meanwhile, we're still stuck not only with Palestinian political disarray but with Netanyahu's refusal, spotlighted eloquently by Obama, to accept a two-state solution and to freeze settlement construction. (Netanyahu has now undertaken to "respond" next Sunday.)  Judging by the Cairo speech, these two principles are the cornerstone of Obama's approach not only to the Palestinian issue but to a search for greater US influence regarding the region's many additional crises.

Q. Obama seemingly drew parallels, albeit indirectly, between the Holocaust and the plight of the Palestinians, and between the history of segregation in America and apartheid in South Africa on the one hand and the Palestinian struggle on the other. He also traveled from Cairo to Buchenwald , ostensibly to highlight his understanding of the role of the Holocaust in the creation of modern-day Israel . And he told his Arab audience in Cairo that "the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied." Are you comfortable with these parallels and comparisons?

A. Obama's statements in this regard appeared to be operating on many levels. He should be applauded for lecturing the Arab and Muslim worlds about Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and violence. By choosing his language and his context so carefully--he never said "terrorism" or, for that matter, "normalization", yet talked about them at length--he could exercise positive influence where others fail.

Undoubtedly, though, a lot of Israelis and Israel-supporters were uncomfortable with his approach to the past 62 years' history of the Palestinians, wherein he seemed to accept their narrative unquestioningly. Then too, the implication of his words and actions, to the effect that Israel should be recognized and accepted by Arabs and Muslims because it is, in effect, a child of the Holocaust, is extremely problematic. This concept in particular merits additional thought and discussion.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad and others invoke Holocaust denial with a specific purpose in mind: to undermine Israel's moral and historic right to exist as a sovereign Jewish nation in its historic homeland and thereby lend credence and credibility to efforts by Iran and others, through support for violence, to eliminate Israel. In this regard, Ahmadinezhad makes two points: either the Holocaust never took place, in which case Israel has no moral right at all to exist; or the Holocaust did take place, in which case it is the Germans and the Austrians who should, in penance, host a Jewish state, and not the Muslim world, which did not contribute to the Holocaust.

Implicit in these arguments, which, as Obama grasped, are popular in the Arab and Muslim worlds, is the assumption that Israel was created solely, or principally, because of the Holocaust. Obama hastens to condemn those who deny the Holocaust. But he also seemingly endorses the assertion that the Holocaust is Israel 's raison d'etre. Left unanswered is the dual argument that, first, the Muslim world should not have been "forced" by the guilt-stricken West to bear the burden of Israel's creation on sanctified Islamic soil and, second, the Palestinian people should not have had to "pay" for the West's misplaced guilt.

Hence, to the extent Obama persuaded his listeners, he risked appearing to verify their Holocaust-based grounds for opposing Israel . In justifying Israel 's existence, he would have been much better off emphasizing its solid roots in "international legitimacy", a value or principle the Arabs subscribe to, perhaps because they erroneously believe it is entirely on their side. Indeed, while the Holocaust undoubtedly constituted an important consideration in the creation of Israel as a haven for the Jewish people, it was not, in historic and diplomatic terms, the main consideration.

In 1922, long before the Holocaust, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was endorsed explicitly by the League of Nations , which appointed Britain the mandatory power and charged it with creating a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people. In 1947, two years after the end of World War II, the United Nations created the state of Israel . The relevant document, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, never mentions the Holocaust. Israel was created by the institutions of the international community, giving it international legitimacy of a sort few nations enjoy.

True, the Zionist movement was founded more than a century ago largely in response to pogroms and other persecution of Jews in Czarist Russia, with the notion of heading off a Holocaust by removing the Jews from areas of danger--an endeavor in which it failed. Undoubtedly, too, the timing of the creation of Israel was heavily influenced by the presence of around one million displaced Jewish Holocaust victims seeking refuge and the world's pangs of conscience after the events of World War II.

But the Zionist pioneers of the pre-WWII immigration waves had Jewish nationalism in mind, not pogroms. And the international institutions that created Israel recognized the Jews as a people with legitimate national and historic rights, irrespective of the Holocaust.

We can only speculate as to whether, had there been no Holocaust, the half-million Jewish settlers in the Yishuv would have succeeded eventually in carving out a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. I believe, given the dynamic nature of the Zionist movement during the pre-Holocaust years, that the momentum would in any event have led to the creation of a state.

We can debate this issue at our leisure. But just as we should not allow Ahmadinezhad and his ilk to dictate the agenda for discussing Israel 's legitimacy, we should avoid countering Holocaust-denial in the Arab and Muslim world with a narrative that predicates Israel 's existence on the Holocaust. That plays right into the hands of the anti-Semites.  Without in any way denigrating the centrality of the Holocaust in modern Jewish history, Obama could have framed his courageous reply to the Middle East 's Holocaust-deniers in a more balanced narrative regarding Israel 's formidable legal, national and moral roots.