US President Barack Obama says the US has opened a "new chapter" in diplomacy after the Arab Spring uprisings People in countries across the Middle East have been giving the BBC their reactions to his speech.

Still Obama allied America with those Arabs and Iranians thirsting for freedom, and he did so in a subtle but remarkable way. He invoked, as he so often does, the civil-rights movement. Not World War II, where American power served the cause of freedom.

Hardly anyone would dispute the claim that Haim Saban cares deeply about Israel. After all, the Egyptian-born Israeli-American media mogul has admitted to the New York Times, “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Edmund Hull says that the United States must appease the Yemeni public's concerns in order to successfully fight al-Qaida there. "The whole public diplomacy of counterterrorism is extremely important... serving broader interests,"

Then why do media in Turkey have similar problems to those in the West when it comes to the perception of Arabs, even though the country is predominantly Muslim? Again poor knowledge and a lack of information would be the immediate answer.

Qadhafi “blames the international media, activists, and journalists for the uprising and holds them responsible if the uprising continues to increase,” and particularly recognizes the Internet’s role in organizing the initial demonstrations on February 15th.

Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that
“freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples...

If there was ever a time to move things along, this is it," said Philip Seib, the director of the Centre on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. "Obama must make clear, publicly and privately, that Israel must move forward now.