Political discussions

I've been asking my family what they think of Obama and it's been interesting to hear their reply. They seem to believe very strongly that the president of the US is indirectly the president of the world, which I can understand, the funny thing is that they believe that any president of the US will work only for the US interests--and politics is politics. I suppose they are right, but they don't seem to believe that US interests can be pursued in multiple ways. And that Obama might change that way. Maybe its me being the idealist--but it would be a depressing thought if Obama conducted himself in world politics the same way that Bush did.
It's also interesting about Gaza. Everyone I've talked to here, be it the cofounder of the program, my history teacher, or my host parents, they seem to think (at least emotionally) that all of the West is supporting Israel in a sort of our tribe against your tribe sort of way. I understand the feeling, and yes some of the governments are really pro-Israel, but it's really much more complicated than that. In fact, I feel like there are quite a few European countries that are pro-Israel, and that the western media reaction has not been that pro-Israel either, yet the Moroccans still seem to feel that it's another clash of West against East, not simply a clash of Israel vs. Palestine.
On that note, though, it's interesting to see how Moroccans view Jews. There seemed to have been a very big population of Jews in Morocco, that left not because they were kicked out, but because Israel offered incentives for them to come to Israel. Moroccan Jews even have a relatively good relationship to the Moroccan government, because when the vichy government controlled it and the Germans wanted the Vichy government to send the Jews of Morocco, the King of Morocco said "We have no Jews, only Moroccans." There was even a Jew at a pro-Gaza demonstration that said he didn't like Israel because it had stolen away his family. Because of this large Jewish population, it seems that Moroccans have a slightly better ability to separate Jews from Israel, compared to the rest of the Arab world.