Barack Obama, the US president, has urged Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who is visiting the US, to commit to a Palestinian state, but Netanyahu has refrained from backing the plan.

Obama also said that the expansion of Jewish settlements should stop, but he did not say that existing settlements should be dismantled.

For his part the Israeli leader was much more focused on the perceived Iranian threat.

Obama and Netanyahu may talk of peace in the Middle East but their suggested solutions to the ongoing crisis are poles apart.

Will the US put pressure on Israel? Or is Obama just paying diplomatic lip service to the Arab world?

Inside Story discusses with Richard Murphy, a former US ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia, Oreeb Rantawi, the director of the al-Quds Center for Political Studies, and Anshel Pfeffer, a correspondent for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.

This episode of Inside Story aired on Tuesday, May 19, 2009.