Obama's Speech in Cairo
The transcript of Obama's speech in Cairo is here.
In connection with Obama's speech, Esquire presents an excerpt from my new book on the Muslim Brotherhood and the need to encourage it toward democratic practices and values. The presence of Muslim Brotherhood members in the audience at Cairo has been controversial among some Republican congressmen, but that's silly. The Muslim Brotherhood has 88 members in the lower house of the Egyptian parliament and is not an extremist or a terrorist organization. I hold not brief for it, and disagree with its goals, but we want these movements included in a broadened democracy, not marginalized and driven toward violence as a result.
Roger Simon followed when the crowd in Cairo applauded and when it didn't. I think he may be reading too much into some moments of silence, but he is absolutely correct that Obama's even-handedness in defending Israel would not have been and was not popular. Arab publics think that Israel has been doing something criminal to the Palestinians, and they can't understand why the international community condones it.
The big applause lines were on democracy, human rights and women's rights and on the quotation of the Qur'an about truth-speaking and to the effect that if someone kills a single person it is as though s/he killed the whole world. That the latter was so popular suggests that silence when Obama condemned violent extremists was not an endorsement of extremist violence.
Haroon Siddiqui on Obama's visit yesterday to Saudi Arabia as the triumph of pragmatism.
See Gregg Krupa on the significance of the speech for the Detroit area's Arab-American community. I'm quoted.
The Video, Part I
The Video, Part II:
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 6/04/2009 09:56:00 AM
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14 Comments:
It is problematic for an American or European leader to promote the Golden Rule considering the history of American and European nations in promoting dual standards.
If equal treatment were to be realized, all Palestinians would have the right of return, all Palestinians would seek and would recover stolen property, and as a consequence, Israel would vanish.
Is it necessary for Obama to keep repeating the "unbreakable bond" phrase with regard to Israel? Surely we can just leave this as an unspoken fact. How can he purport to be evenhanded in the conflict when he keeps repeating that, if push comes to shove, he'll always side with Israel?
Of course, prof. Cole loves the speech. What about Arabs?
See here http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-speech-part-vapid-and-part.html
I vehemently disagree with and challenge one of Juan Cole’s statements made today, June 4th 2009, on Democracy Now. Professor Cole stated that Obama can do little “other than jawbone” to put pressure on the Israeli Government to stop settlement expansion and make peace with the Palestinians.
Setting aside the fact that virtually every modern US President has ignored the will of Congress and/or specific US laws in order to pursue foreign policy agendas, there remain perfectly legal means to put pressure on Israel. Customs officials can slow down shipments to Israel on a number of pretexts; this would deliver a message. The Administration can initiate reviews of military assistance to determine compliance with the requirements of various laws including the Arms Exports Control Act which requires that weapons received by foreign governments from the United States be used only for self-defensive purposes.
As Professor Cole knows the US acts regularly to veto UN Security Council resolutions which condemn Israeli actions in violation of international law. The US can tell Israel that it will abstain on future resolutions of this type if Israel does not do x (e.g. freeze settlement expansion).
These are just a few examples; I am sure there are many more tools – beyond “jawboning” – by which the President of the US and his Administration can pressure Israel to make a just peace with the Palestinians. There are many tools which are subtle and which it would be hard even for the powerful Israeli lobby in the US to oppose. Even if AIPAC et al mounts a political challenge, there are ways the pressure can be put on that lend themselves to “plausible deniability”.
This is entirely separate from the question of whether President Obama is willing to put on the pressure and/or accept the political costs that putting on real pressure would likely provoke.
I hope Juan Cole misspoke on Democracy Now today and that he will clarify – or amend – his statement.
Why does anyone pay any attention to what a politician says? what's important is what they do. I'll believe that things have changed when things actually change. In the meantime the killing of brown people continues, the torture continues, the illegal imprisonment continues, the illegal spying continues and the looting of the taxpayer is accelerating.
Please comment on what part of the speech would not or could not have been made by Pres Bush.
What would have been the difference between Pres Obama and a third Bush term?
"That the latter was so popular suggests that silence when Obama condemned violent extremists was not an endorsement of extremist violence."
Perhaps they were silently wondering when the USA was going to STOP being violent extremists.
Mr. Obama complained against Hamas attacks on civilians.
But he had nothing to say on Israeli attacks on civilians.
He spoke as if violence is the purview of Palestinians, while actually the bulk of the violence has been perpetrated against them, not by them. Take the thousand civilian killed in the recent assault on Gaza.
For this reason, I wouldn't call Mr. Obama's speech even-handed.
"Political Islam" covers a very large spectrum, but if you keep the best of politics and the best of Islam, I guess you cannot get wrong (besides, opposing European colonialism in the XIXth century or Mubarak nowadays doesn't necessarily mean being evil).
That said, I don't feel comfortable when politics mix with religion in general, and particularily when a caricature of religion drives the political agenda.
Obama talked a lot about religion in Cairo, but always drawing the line between politics and religion... a very tricky path, but he fared rather well. Not by judging people, but by showing a universal, sound, and consensual way everyone feels like following.
Like his national campaign : here's where I stand, opposing me can only happen via negative campaigning, the good guys tend to follow me and the bad guys end up shooting themselves in the feet.
What Obama keeps rejecting are biased conceptions leading to misunderstanding and ultimately mutual hatred.
"If equal treatment were to be realized, all Palestinians would have the right of return, all Palestinians would seek and would recover stolen property, and as a consequence, Israel would vanish."
What of the Jews from Arab lands or descended from Jews of Arab lands (a sizeable number) whose property was stolen?
"Perhaps they were silently wondering when the USA was going to STOP being violent extremists."
*Just what I was thinking, dancewater.*
The consensus here in the Moroccan town of Taroudant is that Obama continued to pander to Israel and did not inspire much hope among people here who are overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.
As long as the US insists on demanding that the Palestinians forswear violence, but never requires that Israel do so, I think decent human beings the world over will find one-sided comments about extremist violence unappetizing, especially coming from the country, our country, the US, that has been the most violent country in the world in recent years.
Also, as an added corollary, whenever anyone calls on the Palestinians to renounce violence, there should be a call on hard line Israel to STOP suppressing legitimate political expression at home, in Palestine and around the world, just because it disagrees.
From Peaceniks in Israel, to demonstrators against the Wall in Palestine, to the Davos process, to the US political discussion, Israel seeks to crush all legitimate opposition, SO WHAT CHOICE DOES IT LEAVE THE PALESTINIANS?!!!!
We can't on one hand say 'don't do violence' while on the other hand denying other forms of political speech and action. Even elections we have denied to the people of Palestine, either preventing them or invalidating them. Right now Obama prefers to talk to a Palestinian government that isn't legitimate, but that he thinks is malleable, than encourage anything like a legitimate political process in Palestine.
"What of the Jews from Arab lands or descended from Jews of Arab lands (a sizeable number) whose property was stolen?"
Dan, as usual, is not telling the whole story.They are victims of the same Zionism. They could be living in peace in Arab states, as they did BEFORE Zionism. So I suppose Zionists must compensate them.
The main point that most of the media seems to be missing is that Obama's foreign policy points from his speech were EXACTLY the same as Bush's.
Yet the media is so in love with Obama that they offer no rational analysis or debate.
See a point-by-point comparison at www.internationalpoliticalwill.com
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