With rebels pressing into the heart of Tripoli, President Obama issued a statement late Sunday saying that the momentum against Moammar Kadafi’s regime has reached a "tipping point" and calling on the Libyan leader to step down.

"The people of Libya are showing that the universal pursuit of dignity and freedom is far stronger than the iron fist of a dictator," Obama said.

"The surest way for the bloodshed to end is simple: Moammar Qadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end. Qadhafi needs to acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all."

Photos: Battle for Tripoli, ongoing conflict in Libya

At the same time, Obama urged rebel forces to respect the rights of the people of Libya, avoid civilian casualties, protect the institutions of state and pursue a just and inclusive transition to democracy.

"A season of conflict must lead to one of peace," Obama said.

White House aides said the president is receiving regular briefings on Libya while on a family vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Read the full statement after the jump.

The Palestinian race to September is going at full force, in spite of international initiatives to persuade  them to change their minds.

The latest such initiative came from France.

On a visit to Ramallah on Thursday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe revealed his government’s plan to invite Palestinians and Israelis to an international peace conference late this month or in early July in Paris.

The purpose is to restart the moribund Palestinian-Israeli negotiations before September, when the Palestinians want the United Nations Security Council to vote in favor of a resolution admitting the State of Palestine as a full member of the U.N.,  with recognized borders within the June 1967 armistice line.

“We are convinced that if nothing happens between now and September, the situation will be difficult for everyone,” Juppe said at a news conference after meeting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Juppe stopped short of saying his country would support the Palestinian effort if Israel turns down the French initiative, which is expected to happen, emphasizing that “if nothing happens until September … all options will be open.”

Though Juppe’s plan is based mainly on President Obama’s Mideast initiative, which calls for resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations based on the 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, it  goes a couple of steps further, which make the Israeli rejection likely.

While Obama talked about security for Israel, Juppe talked about security for the two states, and while Obama said the issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees would be negotiated at a later stage without giving a timeline, the French minister said these issues should be resolved within one year.

The French expansion on the Obama plan seems to have struck a positive note with the Palestinian Authority, but apparently not strongly enough to agree to attend the proposed Paris peace conference, let alone resume negotiations with Israel before it stops all settlement activities and agrees that the talks will eventually lead to a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Fayyad, speaking at the press conference with Juppe, said that the French initiative could succeed “if it had the right parameters that clearly state the 1967 borders and that reject the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, which will be the capital of the Palestinian state.”

Juppe said the French plan has the backing of the European Union and the United States. All that is left is to have the backing of Israel and the Palestinians.

--Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Reaction in the Middle East to President Obama’s speech on U.S. policy toward the region ran the gamut from surprise to support to disappointment. Following are selected, edited comments from observers in some of the region's nations:

“It was not expected that Obama would criticize any of the U.S. allies, but he did so when he talked about Bahrain and called for a dialogue with the opposition while calling for the release of prisoners. Obama set a new approach toward the Middle East … opening a new chapter with the Arab world.”

                        — Hassan Sahili, student at the Lebanese University in Beirut

“Emotionally, President Obama’s rhetoric and eloquence appealed to the ears of his audience across the world. But Obama fell short of my expectations when he referred to Syrian and Bahrain authorities.

I expected him to be more serious and harsher in his criticisms of President Bashar Assad [of Syria] and Al Khalifah in Bahrain. Both these countries are run despotically and heavy handedly. Bahrain … is the U.S.A.’s ally, and Syria is not an ally of the U.S.

Both governments are fiercely and brutally suppressing their own people. I expected President Obama to … clearly put pressure on both governments to cave in to the demands of their own people.…

The U.S. in particular and the West in general are treating the regional countries with double standards, as the violation of human rights in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are ignored or neglected while the human rights breaches in Iran are highlighted.

Anyway, President Obama has got a historic, golden and unprecedented opportunity to seize  his place in history … if he addresses the democracy in all countries in the region” equally.

                    — Sadegh Zibakalam, professor of political science at Tehran University 

Like U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the hot seat on YouTube's World View, and questions from around the world.

In a special broadcast paired with Israel's Channel 2 news, Netanyahu answered questions from Israelis before switching to English to answer questions from 90 countries around the world, including many throughout the Middle East.

Israelis were concerned about a host of local issues, including recent allegations that he accepted private funding for public travel (which Netanyahu dismissed as a slander campaign), and the decline in stature and caliber of Israel's political leaders, once modest -- frugal, even -- and far flashier today.  Citizens asked about Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip for five years, about Israel's response to recent rocket attacks on its south and how approving settlement construction after the murders in Itamar would help matters.

Israel's policies, the peace process and regional upheaval were on everyone's mind. Will you negotiate returning the Golan Heights to Syria? Whose side do you take in the recent eruptions throughout the Middle East? Is Israel a strategic asset or liability to the U.S.? And why is Avigdor Lieberman the foreign minister?

Check out the video ( or view it at this link) for more questions and Netanyahu's answers.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.

The new White House press secretary told journalists aboard Air Force One on Friday that President Obama is "deeply concerned" by reports of violence against peaceful demonstrators in the Middle East.

"I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur," the president said in a statement read by Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Obama said people everywhere "have certain universal rights, including the right to peaceful assembly."

"The United States urges the governments of Bahrain, Libya and Yemen to show restraint in responding to peaceful protests and to respect the rights of their people," the president said.

Mounting protests against long-reigning regimes in the three Mideast nations have turned violent in recent days. A hand grenade thrown into a crowd of Yemeni demonstrators on Friday killed one and injured dozens, and the death toll from clashes in Libya over the last two days was reported to be as high as 50. In Bahrain, where at least four were killed Thursday when government troops cleared protesters from central Pearl Square, guns and tear gas were used by security forces on Friday when marchers approached the focal point of this week's sectarian demonstrations.

-- Carol J. Williams 

On the eve of a planned United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, President Obama called his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, on Thursday to discuss the measure.

Palestinian sources said Obama tried to dissuade Abbas from proceeding with the resolution, which the U.S. strongly opposes on grounds that it will obstruct efforts to resume Palestinian-Israeli negotiations suspended since September.

Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, confirmed that the conversation took place and said it went on for over 50 minutes. He said the two leaders discussed the situation in the Middle East, particularly developments in Egypt and Tunisia, as well as the anti-settlement resolution.

Palestinian officials said the resolution was submitted to the Security Council on Wednesday for discussion and a vote by Friday. The resolution condemns Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and calls for a total halt to settlement construction in the region, including East Jerusalem.

Earlier Thursday, Abbas said he decided to go to the Security Council after the Middle East quartet, which is made up of the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the U.N., had failed in its last meeting in Munich, Germany, to condemn Israeli settlements and recognize the 1967 lines as the borders of a future Palestinian state.

Abu Rudeineh said Abbas has summoned the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee and his Fatah party’s Central Committee for an urgent meeting on Friday to discuss the Obama conversation.

"President Abbas, and after a long telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama, has called members of the Palestinian leadership to a quick and urgent meeting to discuss the latest developments that were the subject of discussion with President Obama," he said.

Sources said Abbas wants to discuss with the Palestinian leaders Obama's ideas regarding the resolution, which Palestinian officials have already said does not rise to the level of their expectations.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said the U.S. has tried to convince the Palestinians to withdraw their Security Council proposal, but without success. He said the proposed U.S. alternative to the Palestinian resolution would not make them change their minds.

The U.S. apparently tried to persuade the Palestinians to accept a nonbinding statement by the Security Council condemning Israeli settlements and calling for resumption of negotiations based on the June 1967 borders, but not a state based on those borders.

Malki said a U.S. veto of the proposed Security Council resolution would seriously hurt Washington's already shaky credibility in the region, particularly because the declared U.S. position is that the settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace and that Israel should stop them.

If Abbas, on the other hand, accepts a watered-down U.S. proposal on settlements, he might hurt his standing at home, particularly as the Arab street is up in arms against the traditional leadership.

In Ramallah, over 1,000 Palestinians demonstrated in the city center on Thursday under the slogan "the people want an end to division." This movement, if it grows, may become a serious concern for the Palestinian Authority as its demands may go beyond just a call for unity.

As a way to cool down rising uneasiness in the street, Abbas has called for presidential and legislative elections in the Palestinian territories before September. Analysts say he's hoping that this move would shift the pressure to his arch rival, the Islamist Hamas movement, which ousted his forces from the Gaza Strip and took control of it in June 2007. Hamas opposes elections, including local elections scheduled for July 9.

But before people were able to swallow the idea of national elections, Abbas said Thursday that elections would not be held without the Gaza Strip, knowing very well that Hamas would not allow them to be held in its territory.

For the Palestinian people, this means no elections, indefinitely.

-- Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Leaders, media, academics and arm-chair politicians (basically most Israelis) continue to monitor the upheaval rocking its big neighbor, just one door down. If there's a theme de jour, it seems to be "careful what you wish for."

Monday, during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that while the main cause of unrest doesn't stem from radical Islam, such forces could take over a country in turmoil. The next day he said -- in a closed-door diplomatic-security consultation -- that Israel supports advancing free and democratic values in the Middle East, but warned that neither would be achieved if radical forces are allowed to exploit the processes and take power.

President Shimon Peres also spoke in this vein, advising the world to study the results of the pressure for free elections that brought Hamas rule to Gaza but not a single day of democracy to Gazans since. "Democracy is not just elections because if you elect the wrong people, you bring an end to democracy." True democracy, he said, starts the day after elections, in ensuring the people's human rights and welfare.

These messages are intended for the West, whose pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been successful, whether by design or miscalculation, to the point where results could be out of the comfort zone for Israel and others.

The question is, who needs to do what about it.

The U.S. position on Egypt has taken Israel by surprise and left people wondering what the Americans are doing and what this means for other allies in the region, including Israel.

When the administration first urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to address demonstrators' legitimate demands, commentators in Israel were puzzled, almost appalled.  OK, Mubarak's s not perfect, but why would America think his replacement would be any more democratic or pro-Western? Once again, the Americans are looking at the region through Western eyes and clearly, they don't know what they're doing, was the tone of many Israeli analysts. Politicians are not talking much about the crisis.

As the protests continued, some began thinking maybe Obama does know what he's doing — but they're not sure they like it.

"A knife in the back," was how Dan Margalit of the Yisrael Hayom free-sheet described the American treatment of Mubarak. "Obama threw Mubarak to the dogs," wrote Eitan Haber in Yediot Aharonot. Others were more subtle but most share the opinion that the Obama administration is sending its partners in the Middle East a message through Egypt.

Ephraim Halevy, former chief of Mossad and a highly respected former diplomat, said he's having a hard time understanding some of the American moves, reminding that Egypt was a key strategic partner to them too. But, Halevy notes, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said that all strategic alliances are conditional, as in both "temporary" and with actual "conditions." American conditions, at least in principle, are democracy and rights.

But only Mubarak is getting read the riot act, which suggests to Halevy that this isn't a principled move but a practical one, with a specific purpose. The question is, what does Obama think he will get in return.  "Obama is not naive; this is a gamble," Halevy said.

Uzi Rabi, head of Middle East and Africa studies at Tel-Aviv University, notes that this sends a "very negative message." Shaking off Mubarak in rather a cruel way should raise questions in other Arab countries who dwell "under the American umbrella," Rabi said, adding that this might cause leaders to calculate their moves differently as part of the geopolitical change the region is undergoing.

Does this include Israel?

There are many lessons to be had from the events in Egypt events — and Israel needs to learn some of them yesterday, according to Eitan Haber, former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Unlike his predecessors, the current U.S. president has no sentiments for Israel, he writes. Watching him sell Mubarak down the river "in return for popularity with the masses", Israel's lesson should be "that the man in the White House could sell us from one day to the next." The thought that the U.S. might not be there for Israel on D-day is "chilling," he wrote.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday the United States was playing a "shameful" role in the Egyptian crisis and accused it of hypocrisy for supporting, then abandoning, strongmen around the world.

Chavez told Reuters news agency he had spoken to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and Syria's President Bashar Assad on the protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.

“In Egypt, the situation is complicated," Chavez said.

“Now you are seeing comments from Washington and some European nations. As President Kadafi said to me, it's shameful, it makes you kind of sick to see the meddling of the U.S., wanting to take control.”

On Sunday, President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other U.S. officials urged an orderly transition to democracy in Egypt to avoid a power vacuum but stopped short of calling on President Hosni Mubarak, an ally of three decades, to step down.

Chavez has generally cast himself as pro-Arab, opposed to the policies of Israel and the United States.

But in brief comments carried on state TV, he avoided any further specific comment on Egypt, saying only that “national sovereignty” should be respected.

Chavez scoffed at what he called the United States' changeable foreign policy.

“See how the United States, after using such-and-such a president for years, as soon as he hits a crisis, they abandon him. That's how the devil pays,” he said.

“They didn't even give a visa or anything to the president of Tunisia,” he said, referring to President Zine el Abidine ben Ali, who fled this month after failing to quell the worst unrest of his more than two-decade rule.

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U.S. Embassy in Cairo to begin voluntary evacuation flights Monday

Egyptian opposition leaders plan to negotiate with military, not president

Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks with counterparts in Egypt, Israel about unrest

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Photo: President Hugo Chavez in Caracas on Jan. 26. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

British Prime Minister David Cameron joined President Obama in condemning violence in Egypt on Sunday and called for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to follow a comprehensive process of political reform.

“The prime minister and President Obama were united in their view that Egypt now needed a comprehensive process of political reform, with an orderly, Egyptian-led transition leading to a government that responded to the grievances of the Egyptian people and to their aspirations for a democratic future,” a spokesperson for Cameron told Reuters.

Cameron discussed the crisis in Egypt during a telephone call with U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday evening.

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Military jets buzz protesters over Cairo

Muslim Brotherhood members escape prison, rally in Tahrir Square

Egyptian opposition leaders plan to negotiate with military, not president

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Photo: David Cameron in Switzerland on Jan. 28, 2011. Credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg

Al Jazeera's latest leak of hundreds of secret Palestinian negotiating papers is providing the kind of fly-on-the-wall insights to Mideast peace talks that usually only emerge many years later in the autobiographies of politicians and diplomats.

Though some of the initial coverage and spin by Al Jazeera and other organizations has been inaccurate or out of context, the documents themselves offer a treasure trove of detailed information about Palestinians' internal strategy and tactics. Most of the documents were produced by the Palestinian Authority's own attorneys, advisors and negotiators and include transcripts of private strategy sessions and internal talking points. It's a bonanza for Israel, which can get a peek into the Palestinian thought process as recently as last year.

One December 2009 document discusses "Palestinian Messaging and Implementation." Another lays out the legal risks of a premature declaration of statehood. An internal summary of where peace talks last broke down reveals that Palestinians were prepared in 2008 to limit the number of returning refugees to 15,000 a year for 10 years, or 150,000.

Israel's foreign relations are suffering these days from an outbreak of poor diplomacy. Not necessarily bad; just poor.

Foreign Ministry employees say they are just that, poor. Their basic salaries have been devalued by about 40% since last being updated in the early 1990s, and many of them rely on help from welfare services, say activists from the ministry workers' union.

The diplomats have years of experience, a stack of academic degrees and high motivation to serve. They also have families to feed and pensions to fund, and say neither is doable on their paychecks, which some revealed on a popular news site. Only an idealist or a fool would join the foreign service under these conditions, they said. Finance Ministry officials said the paychecks didn't reflect considerable extras.