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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech June 14 refuted two controversial elements of U.S. President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world: the reason for Israel's existence and the primary obstacle to a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Obama spoke June 4 in Cairo in a stated attempt to reach out directly to Muslims. In the speech, he addressed his administration's view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and raised some concern on both sides of the political spectrum when his history of the region excluded Jewish connection to pre-state Israel.

America's deep alliance with Israel, Obama said, "is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied."

Obama then spoke of the Holocaust, and criticized its popular denial in the Arab world. "On the other hand," he continued, "it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they have endured the pain of dislocation."

Netanyahu, in his address at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University, defended the Jewish people's right to its historical homeland, rejecting the revisionist history of Israel as a colonial project.

"But let me first say that the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,500 years," Netanyahu said. "Judea and Samaria, the places where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David and Solomon, and Isaiah and Jeremiah lived, are not alien to us. This is the land of our forefathers.

"The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people."

Netanyahu then spoke of the persecution the Jewish people have experienced over the last 2,000 years -- a suffering unlike that of any other people. He said this experience culminated in the Holocaust, but added that the Holocaust proved why the Jewish people had a right -- and a responsibility -- to return to the community of nation-states in its historic homeland.

"There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the state of Israel would never have been established," Netanyahu said. "But I say that if the state of Israel had been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred."

The tragedies of the Jewish Diaspora, he said, have demonstrated why the Jewish people need the capability of self-defense that comes with a nation-state.

"But our right to build our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: This is the homeland of the Jewish people, this is where our identity was forged," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also agreed in principle to the establishment of a Palestinian state, but said it must be demilitarized. He agreed that both Israelis and Palestinians -- as well as Arab states -- have responsibilities in the peace process, but he addressed Obama's focus on Jewish towns and villages in the disputed territories commonly referred to derisively as "settlements," and the causality of the conflict as it is perceived by the Obama administration.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden have in recent weeks reiterated the administration's clear opposition to any settlement expansion, even what is known as "natural growth" -- families who already live in the town having children and building a place for those children within the town's borders. Current and former Obama advisers have also taken to the opinion pages of popular newspapers to demand a full settlement "freeze" as a precondition for negotiation.

"Even as we look toward the horizon, we must be firmly connected to reality, to the truth," Netanyahu responded. "And the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland."

Netanyahu then reviewed the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 20th century. Pogroms and massacres of the Jewish communities in pre-state Israel began in the 1920s, he said. In 1947, Palestinians rejected the two-state solution, and the combined Arab armies attempted to destroy Israel in 1948. The attacks continued, he explained, with the rise of the fedayeen terrorists in the 1950s, leading eventually to the Six-Day War in 1967.

"Those who think that the continued enmity toward Israel is a product of our presence in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, are confusing cause and consequence," he said. "All this occurred during the 50 years before a single Israeli soldier ever set foot in Judea and Samaria."

Netanyahu then noted that Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, and that peace has lasted. The Palestinians, however, have continued to resist such peace.

Netanyahu then reviewed the history of Israel's evacuation of territories -- south Lebanon, parts of the West Bank, and most famously the entire Gaza Strip -- and the Palestinian response to Israel's territorial concessions, which has been in each case to use the territory as a launching pad for suicide bombings, kidnappings, and rocket attacks.

"Territorial withdrawals have not lessened the hatred, and to our regret, Palestinian moderates are not yet ready to say the simple words: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and it will stay that way," Netanyahu said. "Achieving peace will require courage and candor from both sides, and not only from the Israeli side."