The University of Tampa is hosting a town hall meeting today at which President Obama and VP Biden are the featured guests.

The very first question directed at President Obama was from a student who accosted him about our support for Egypt and Israel in view of his support for human rights as well as their supposed mistreatment of the Palestinians. She mentioned the aid we send to both Israel and Egypt and suggested it was going to support said mistreatment.

After yelling at the TV for a few seconds and throwing my hairbrush at the tube, I calmed down sufficiently to hear President Obama's measured response, which spoke of the complexity and history of the issues and our support for Israel, which as he pointed out is a vibrant democracy with unbreakable ties to the US.

He indicated that both Bibi and Abbas are dealing with recalcitrant elements within their own constituencies - and mentioned that Bibi is trying to move his coalition along, toward making more concessions that would lead to a peaceful solution - but that Hamas will not forsake violence and doesn't recognize Israel, period.

He was pretty clear about the need for the Palestinians to forsake violence, period, and said that inflammatory language wasn't helping matters.

Hooray.

I think this is exactly right. The students in our universities and other people who aren't old enough or who haven't studied much history have a very shallow understanding of the Middle East and the blogosphere, the climate on many US campuses, British anti-Israel propaganda even in their state-supported media, plus antisemitic propaganda have created a very simple-minded view of the Arab/Israeli conflict.

I'm glad that Obama confronted this directly but I'm concerned, down the line, that the complexities of the situation will be forgotten, unstudied or simply ignored.