"President Barack Obama on Thursday called on Israel to open its borders with Gaza, in a powerful sign of his new administration’s break with Bush-era policy on the Middle East and the world as a whole. Speaking on a day when both he and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, were welcomed by hundreds of enthusiastic US diplomats at the State Department, Mr Obama proclaimed that his administration would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” in the wake of the recent conflict in Gaza."