obama pwned on palestine: a play-by-play

Annoying thing about town hall meetings with the president: sometimes someone asks a real question. In this case, that someone was University of South Florida student activist Laila Abdelaziz, who had the great honor of delivering Obama one of the more embarrassing moments of his presidency.

You know (I sigh with a bit of nostalgia), there was a time when a presidential fumble like this wouldn't have even registered. But now that Americans have become used to a commander in chief who can, you know, conjugate verbs and stuff, it's almost painful to watch Obama tie himself in knots trying to defend US support for Israel. Nevertheless, he manages! And it ends up going something like this:

[rush transcript]

0:00: Young woman of color who says she campaigned for me? This can't possibly go wrong!
0:05: Human rights, sweet, I got this.
0:12: Oh crap.
0:27: $!#@%&, I didn't practice this one.
0:30: Stall by talking about "the Middle East in general." Cause they're all really the same over there, right?
0:35: Stall some more by talking about that dude's beads. Wow, I got 20 seconds out of that?! Win!
0:55: "The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries." Oh jeez, I sound like Bush. Well, at least I've made the point that any conflict in the Middle East is the result of age-old intractable religious strife, not colonialism or imperialism. Man, that part of the world's just fucked up.
1:17: ISRAEL IS ONE OF OUR STRONGEST ALLIES. I know that one! Whew, back on track.
1:27: Israel is a democracy!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:30: Israelis are like us, unlike those crazy Arabs surrounding them.
1:52: Did I mention they're surrounded by crazy Arabs?
2:03: The Palestinians deserve our attention, not because they're, you know, people, but because they're DANGEROUS to the US and to Israel, ONE OF OUR STRONGEST ALLIES.
2:23: Oh and btw Palestinians are uneducated.
2:29: Shit is really complicated over there, so don't expect anything to improve any time soon, and HEAVEN FORBID don't try to understand it yourself. But both sides are equally at fault. And by that I mean mostly the Palestinians.
2:42: [lay out peace plan that Israel has ensured will never come to pass]
3:00: Both sides must compromise. Palestinians: you first.
3:10: Palestinians must stop resisting occupation and ethnic cleansing. Israel must "acknowledge their grievances" (no actual action required).
3:50: [required to say something nice about Netanyahu here under terms of Netanyahu-Obama "I totally pwned you on that settlement thing" agreement]
4:03: Abbas, our unelected puppet in the West Bank, has to deal with Hamas, the people the Palestinians actually elected to lead them, and it's causing some kinks in the pipeline of the Palestinians completely negotiating away the last shreds of their dignity.
4:30: In conclusion, ISRAEL IS ONE OF OUR STRONGEST ALLIES. Next question, please.