Obama urges Israel to strike peace deal President Barack Obama gave an impassioned appeal for Israelis to support the peace process with the Palestinians on Thursday, telling them that the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state depended on it. Mr Obama told an audience of largely young Israelis that striking a peace deal was the only way to reverse the country's growing isolation and that Palestinians also deserve "justice and self-determination." "You can be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream, or you can face a growing challenge to its future," he said, adding that "the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realisation of an independent and viable Palestine." Strong on rhetoric but light on details about how the peace process might move forward, the speech was the high-point of a two-day visit to Israel, his first as president, which has been designed to allow Mr Obama to engage with ordinary Israelis, many of whom felt shunned during his first term. Having sought to mend wounds with the Muslim world in his first year as president, most notably with a 2009 speech in Cairo, the White House is taking a very different approach in Mr Obama's second term, hoping that if he builds a stronger constituency of support within Israel, he can help shift the debate about the peace process Warmly received throughout the address, Mr Obama mixed high praise for Israel's achievements and entrepreneurship with some of what US officials believed are hard truths about the dilemmas facing the country. "It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day," he said. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land. The strong emotional connection that he built with the audience of young Israelis contrasted with the more stilted atmosphere earlier in the day when Mr Obama met leaders of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Mr Obama said that he still believed a peace deal was possible, but did not condition new talks on a freeze on settlements. However, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, insisted that settlements remained a central concern. "We require the Israeli government to stop settlements in order to discuss all our issues and their concerns," he said at a joint press conference. Mr Obama's early efforts to revive the peace process during his first term were criticised for the lack of follow-through after the Cairo speech and the White House faces a similar dilemma of having no clear path to reviving the talks. John Kerry, the new secretary of state whom Mr Obama said would make the peace process a central priority, is to return to Israel this weekend for follow-up discussions. A senior Obama administration official said that the White House did not have a specific timeline for restarting the talks but was hoping to see the parties take measures to encourage increased confidence, such as allowing more freedom of movement for Palestinians or for the Palestinian Authority to step back from its efforts to achieve recognition from the UN. However, many analysts remain sceptical about an approach based on confidence-building measures which has been tried many times before. "My hunch is that Obama knows that putting Netanyahu and Abbas back in a room together will achieve nothing and that he is in no great hurry or places no great faith in those talks," said Daniel Levy, at the European Council on Foreign Relations.