Rabbi Lerner assesses Obama visit to Holy Land

Jerusalem today

Today President Obama will spend a short time at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem before travelling to Jordan. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, discusses the trip so for and assesses the speech Obama made in Jerusalem yesterday: "If only Obama could go beyond the brilliant principles he articulated today to Israelis in Jerusalem—to follow through with action based on those principles!!!

"Obama had an amazing opportunity to paint a detailed picture of what a peace agreement could look like between Israelis and Palestinians. Very few Palestinians or Israelis have ever heard one of their leaders present such a vision in a way that seemed detailed enough to be plausible.

"Instead, President Obama stayed at a very general level—urging people to not fear, reminding them that they are not alone. And those reminders were brilliantly done, and very important. The best was when he asked Israelis to imagine themselves into the consciousness of Palestinians living under occupation—for this alone, Obama deserves our thanks."

Read the full text of Obama's to Israelis on March 21, 2013, in Jerusalem here followed by Rabbi Lerner's commentary: www.tikkun.org/nextgen/obamas-speech-to-israelis-the-text-and-my-commentary