President Obama has eloquence of an Old Testament prophet

When Barack Obama expressed a secret wish last week to wander through Israel incognito, critics saw it as proof that his visit to one of the world's most enduring conflict zones was little more than tourism. On first glance, such fears now seem to have been allayed. Addressing 1,000 students and a worldwide television audience of millions in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US president was the very model of serious purpose.

With his soaring rhetoric, he resembled the Barack Obama that a majority of the American public and much of the world beyond once loved - and had almost forgotten. With characteristic charm, Obama told his audience how much he loved their country and how the Jewish people's story had moved and inspired him.

Then he turned their own narrative back on them, by effectively telling them: set the Palestinian people free.

Pure political theatre - and delivered with all the eloquence of an Old Testament prophet. This was no tourist. He had come to move and inspire and bring change to the Middle East. No message delivered so compellingly could fail to leave its mark, surely.

Yet there is a sense of deja vu. Obama's message of change has been heard before in the Middle East - in Cairo in 2009, when he sought to recast America's battered reputation with the Muslim world.

The result was a cascade of renewed hope - yet as of now, with little tangible result. Outside Israel, the US remains as unpopular as ever, while the Arab Spring has unleashed a frightening torrent of horrors in Syria, the Jewish state's neighbour.

So mindful of the recent past, Palestinians - already deeply cynical about Obama's visit before his arrival - are entitled to ask: where's the substance? There is little reason to hope that Palestinian statehood can be achieved through mere words. From Obama's narrow perspective, yesterday's speech may have served another purpose. In 2010, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, delivered a devastating snub to the president's earlier peace overtures by going to Washington and delivering an alternative vision in a speech to the US Congress. The president may now think he has delivered a form of payback.