President Barack Obama's major speech in Cairo, Egypt lived up to the hype; not that, as the president said at the city's Al-Azhar University, "a single speech can eradicate years of mistrust," but that Obama is uniquely comfortable speaking plainly in the most uncomfortable of situations. And here—in a Muslim country not yet fully democratic, before an audience of skeptical, but cosmopolitan Egyptians and a noisome public at home—was an uncomfortable situation....

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is not feeling President Obama's call for Gaza settlement freeze...

Jan. 20 cannot come soon enough with respect to the Middle East crisis. Hillary Clinton may be taking over the State Department, but new signals of respect and active engagement must come, quickly, from President Obama.