President Bush’s State of the Union speech was not a big hit in the Arab world: Bush’s speech leaves Arab commentators speechless.

CAIRO (AFP) - Newspapers in Egypt and Syria took pains to highlight US President George W. Bush’s omission of any reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his State of the Union address.

“Bush ignores the Palestinian question and asks for an increase in the budget to promote democratization in the region!” Egypt’s government newspaper Al-Ahram said in a front-page headline on Thursday.

While other Cairo newspapers also ran news reports of his Tuesday night speech, highlighting the president’s stand on the “war on terror” or other aspects of the Middle East, the Egyptian media refrained from any commentary.

Al-Ahram also ran headlines from lines in his speech.

It published a reaction from chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat who argued that Bush’s speech meant the United States had decided to withdraw from the Arab-Israeli peace process in 2004.