U.S. President Barack Obama has blunt message for Arabs and Jews

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama had a blunt, "tough-love" message for Arabs and Israelis that thrust him deeper keen on Middle East peacemaking -- a tangled web that bedeviled his predecessors and carries risks in support of him.

Quoting a Koran passage to "speak always the truth," Barack Obama set aside diplomatic niceties in a speech in Cairo demanding that Israel stop building Jewish West Bank settlements that antagonize Palestinians, that Palestinians work for peace and believe Israel's right to exist and for Palestinian militants to halt violence.

"We cannot impose peace," Barack Obama said in Thursday's speech to the world's Muslims. "But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true."

His foray into the Middle East come far earlier in his presidency than that of his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who waited until late in their terms to make a major push and found themselves disappointed at the outcome?

Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said taking the initiative on Middle East peace this early means Barack Obama ability to deliver will become a test of his credibility.

"This administration three years from now when we're in the middle of an election campaign will in part be measured on the extent to which it brings Arabs and Israelis closer to a two-state solution," he said.

The president, who is a Christian but whose Kenyan father came from a family that includes generations of Muslims, stressed his Muslim roots in a way that he never did during his presidential campaign last year, when it might have been seen as a political liability.