Obama speech aimed at both Arabs and Israelis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama plans to tell Arabs and Israelis to stop saying one thing in public and another in private when he speaks to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Wednesday, Obama suggested parties to the conflict were engaged in a constant "Kabuki dance" he hoped to break down by holding up a mirror and offering U.S. help as the sides forge peace.

A key part of his message, Obama said, would be: "Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly."

Many Israelis recognize a need to make tough choices on Jewish settlements, many Palestinians recognize a need to stop incitement against Israel and be more constructive, and many Arab states view the threat of a nuclear Iran as greater than any threat from Israel -- but none would say these things publicly, he said.

In office four months, Obama headed to the Middle East on Tuesday hoping to mend ties to the Islamic world in a speech aides said would deal with tough issues such as the deadlock in U.S.-brokered Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Obama disclosed his plans in a 20-minute phone interview about the speech with Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Tuesday.

"We have a joke around the White House," the president said. "We're just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working -- and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East."

STRAIGHTFORWARD MESSAGE

The president said he hoped to persuade the Arab street and ultimately their leaders to work with the United States.

"There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the 'threat' from Israel, but won't admit it," Obama said.

There are a lot of Israelis, he said, "who recognize that their current path is unsustainable, and they need to make some tough choices on settlements to achieve a two-state solution -- that is in their long-term interest -- but not enough folks are willing to recognize that publicly."

Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are at odds over a push by Obama for Israel to halt Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. About half a million Jews live in settlements among nearly 3 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.

There are a lot of Palestinians, he said, who "recognize that the constant incitement and negative rhetoric with respect to Israel" has not delivered a single "benefit to their people and had they taken a more constructive approach and sought the moral high ground" they would be much better off today -- but they won't say it aloud.

"There are a lot of Arab states that have not been particularly helpful to the Palestinian cause beyond a bunch of demagoguery," and when it comes to "ponying up" money to actually help the Palestinian people, they are "not forthcoming," he said in the interview.

Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said leaders in the region would at first be "taken aback" by Obama's bluntness but it would ultimately enhance U.S. credibility after eight years of Bush administration policy.

"There's been a discrepancy in what leaders say publicly and privately, particularly on the Arab-Israeli conflict and on Iran," said Telhami, who also teaches at the University of Maryland. "This is the refreshing directness of the new president, and they'll need to get used to it."

David Makovsky, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said it was most significant that Obama was saying openly that Arab leaders were engaging in "double-talk," something his predecessors had glossed over.

"It's not new to hear an American president criticize Israeli settlement policy," he said. "What's new is that he says ... there's this gap in public and private discourse in the Arab world."

Makovsky said Arab leaders might be so enthralled with Obama that they take his message seriously. But he added, "The question is if they really cut out the double talk."

(To read the Friedman column, go to here)

(Writing by Howard Goller, additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, editing by Anthony Boadle)