(For the complete text of the speech, click the headline)In the body of the article we have hot links to Muslim comments throughout the world.
Just click 'read more' to get started.
Incidentally, critical reaction to the Cairo speech can pretty much be used as an intelligence test; anyone voicing substantive negativity is a guaranteed idiot.
Well, we have a pretty good idea of how President Obama�s Cairo speech played in the Muslim world � see here and here and here and here and here and here and here and, well, you�re on your own after that, although this site is a pretty good guide � but how was the reception in the region�s non-Islamic nation, Israel, and among bloggers everywhere who see relations between the Jewish and Muslim states as the key to Middle East peace?
�Neither Tel Aviv nor Ramallah held their breaths Thursday as the American president gave a speech in Cairo,� wrote Gideon Levy of Haaretz, Israel�s liberal paper of record.
Oddly, the debate in Israel was tamer that that among American pundits and bloggers.
�Nonetheless, no one can ignore the speech given by Barack Obama: The mountain birthed a mountain. Obama remained Obama. Only the Israeli analysts tried to diminish the speech�s importance (�not terrible�), to spread fear (�he mentioned the Holocaust and the Nakba in a single breath�), or were insulted on our behalf (�he did not mention our right to the land as promised in the Bible�). All these were redundant and unnecessary. Obama emerged Thursday as a true friend of Israel.�
Orly Azoulay of the tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth was equally impressed:
The proposal placed on the table by Barack Obama in Cairo is one that Israel would not be able to refuse, while the Palestinians and Arab states will justify their reputation for missing opportunities if they don�t rush to grab it �
Using 6,000 words that were selected carefully and polished by the president himself the night before, Barack Obama turned the complex reality of the Middle East into a simple truth: A give-and-take deal that has no losers.
Officials in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Riyadh, and Washington are well aware of the fact that this proposal is the only one that may bring an end to the longtime conflict. All the rest is transient, nuances of terminology and struggles of ego and honor.
I think we can safely assume that Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, writing in the conservative Jerusalem Post, is among the those Levy considers redundant and unnecessary:
The major problem of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the tensions between Jews and Muslims all over the world is not Holocaust denial. As irritating and disgusting as that phenomenon undoubtedly is, it is merely a symptom of something much deeper, which Obama either failed to understand or refused to publicly identify. And that is the basic refusal of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Dar-al-Islam, the Islamic expanse �
The goal Obama sought to achieve was indeed daunting, but the only hope for success, at least as far as Jews and Arabs are concerned, was not to try and take the easy way out, but rather to address the core issues directly.
In other words, even if the Arabs stop denying the Shoa, it will not bring peace to the Middle East. In fact, it is not even that significant in and of itself. What will bring a true change to our region, and to relations between Jews and Arabs, will be when the latter recognize the history of the Jewish people and their connection to Eretz Yisrael and the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Dar-al-Islam.
That should be the objective of all American governments, since it will mean the end of the religious conflict between Jews and Arabs, which is basically insoluble, and the beginning of steps toward a peace agreement, which hopefully can one day be achieved.
Yet the JPost�s editorial page had a surprisingly mixed review, urging readers to keep in mind the president�s physical context:
This speech was not largely about the Arab-Israel conflict. It was an effort to pursue public diplomacy and suasion - trying to decouple the susceptible Muslim masses from the demagogic extremists who now hold such sway. That is why the president was wise to travel first to Saudi Arabia, �where Islam began,� and, just before his speech, to be seen deferentially touring a mosque in Cairo - the city from where the theology of worldwide jihad first spread its vicious tentacles.
The speech was brilliantly proleptic: first acknowledging Muslim grievances, then stating the American case. To the Israeli ear, the president sounded fawning, prefacing each mention of the Koran with �holy.� But it was just the right tack given the task at hand. Similarly, as the president highlighted the epochs during which Islam was a force for enlightenment, we could not help but recall that even in that �Golden Age,� Jews were still treated as a dhimmi people.
And yet, the president�s harking back to periods of relative tolerance bolstered his call on today�s Muslims to behave temperately. We also appreciated his defense of the region�s Christian minority.
We swallowed hard as the president intoned that �Islam is not part of the problem� of worldwide terrorism. At the same time, we reminded ourselves that his goal was to convince ordinary Muslims to make this dubious statement reality.
In fact, the Israeli press debate was far tamer than that in American papers and blogs. The Washington Post�s Charles Krauthammer issued perhaps the most ringing broadside:
In his much-heralded �Muslim world� address in Cairo yesterday, Obama declared that the Palestinian people�s �situation� is �intolerable.� Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing destitution and despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel �
In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders built no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, none of the fundamental state institutions that would relieve their people�s suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.
Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: �The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,� thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements.
Blaming Israel and picking a fight over �natural growth� may curry favor with the Muslim �street.� But it will only induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating.
Commentary�s Jennifer Rubin agrees that criticizing Israeli expansionism in the West Bank and Jerusalem �is not helpful in the least if one fantasizes about a peace process.� (Those wanting to know more about the settlement issue might want to take a look at this well-reported piece by Gershom Gorenberg.) However, Rubin thinks the larger problem lies elsewhere.
Neither is Obama�s lackadaisical attitude toward Iran�s nuclear ambitions helpful if one wants to pursue nonproliferation and encourage risk-taking for peace. Forget Israel for a moment; aren�t the Arab states now rushing to figure out how to match Iran in a new, lethal arms race?
Rather than build confidence in the region Obama has spread anxiety and emboldened Israel�s foes to do what they have perfected over 60 years � just wait it out, foment the grievances of the Palestinian people and console themselves that furnished basements in Jerusalem are the moral equivalent of exploding buses.
Obama is all about honesty, he says. Well, he either honestly believes his distorted retelling of history or he�s doing this because he�s out of options. An honest explanation would have been that he hasn�t a clue how to stop the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons and he can�t begin to solve the Hamas-Fatah problem � so beat up on Israel. And when that doesn�t work (because the notion of stopping natural growth of neighborhoods in a democratic society is hooey) at least he can argue it was through no fault of his that we don�t have peace in our time. There is that problem of the nuclear-armed state sponsor of terror. . . Ah well, other continents must be apologized to so we�ll think about that another time.
Caroline B. Glick, writing at the Corner, clearly thinks such judgments only scratch the surface � to her, �Obama�s speech was a renunciation of America�s strategic alliance with Israel.� She continues:
Rhetorically, Obama�s sugar coated the pathologies of the Islamic world � from the tyranny that characterizes its regimes, to the misogyny, xenophobia, Jew hatred, and general intolerance that characterizes its societies. In so doing he made clear that his idea of pressing the restart button with the Islamic world involves erasing the moral distinctions between the Islamic world and the free world.
In contrast, Obama�s perverse characterization of Israel � of the sources of its legitimacy and of its behavior � made clear that he shares the Arab world�s view that there is something basically illegitimate about the Jewish state �
The only silver lining for Israelis from the president�s speech in Cairo and his general positions on the Middle East is that Obama has overplayed his hand. Far from bending to his will, a large majority of Israelis perceives Obama as a hostile force and has rallied in support of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against the administration. This public support gives Netanyahu the maneuver room he needs to take the actions that Israel needs to take to defend against the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran and to assert its national rights and to defend itself against Palestinian terrorists and other Arab and non-Arab anti-Semites who wish it ill.
For PoliGazette�s Michael van der Galien, who is usually sympathetic to the pro-Israel viewpoint, this is rhetorical overkill:
First things first: she is right to point out that he seems to have more love for the Arab world than for Israel. He made that clear throughout his career, and did so again during his speech yesterday.
But, don�t honestly believe the speech marked �the end of America�s strategic alliance with Israel.� The US can�t afford to alienate Israel. Well, not too much, anyway. If Israel believes Obama is hurting its interests, it will simply cozy up to Russia, which would help Russia increase its sphere of influence in the Middle East tremendously. The US can�t accept that, so it has to stand by its traditional regional ally.
Or so I hope.
This leads Carl of Israel Matzav to search for, and actually find, a middle ground: �I wouldn�t characterize this as the end of the American strategic alliance with Israel. But I would say it�s on hold until at least January 2013 and that we Israelis are going to have to muddle through on our own. The good news is that survey after survey here shows that Israelis recognize Obama for what he is and are rallying around our government. In his first five months in office, Obama has overplayed his hand. If there is no strategic alliance of which to speak, there is no competition between our relationship with America and doing what we see as best for Israel.�
Andrew Exum, a.k.a. Abu Muqawama, finds Krauthammer (somewhat accidentally) correct in one aspect:
I even agree with the very end of Krauthammer�s unintentionally hilarious and epic whine about settlements today (in Israel, only far-right MPs struck the same tone as Krauthammer yesterday) when he says this might cause some leaders in the Arabic-speaking world to just sit on their hands and expect Obama to deliver Israeli concessions with no movement on their sides. (Because this was exactly the vibe I got during Abu Mazen�s press conference with Obama last week.)
(Note: Abu Muqawama is changing its Web address as of Friday evening; while the above link should work for a while, you can find young Captain Exum�s new home here.)
Barry Rubin, writing at The Moderate Voice, thinks that if Muslims are hoping to let Obama do their work for them, they�re going to become disenchanted pretty quickly.
Obama played into the stereotype that Israel is the central political issue in the region. Others, of course, are happy to find the usual scapegoat. An Associated Press headline reads, �Obama�s Islam Success Depends on Israel.� Is the entire �Muslim World� just waiting for Israel to stop building a few thousand apartment units a year before deciding that America is great, reform is needed, and moderation wise.
Obama�s phrases were carefully crafted. He called on Palestinians to stop violence, show their competence in administration, and accept a two-state solution, living in peace alongside Israel. Hamas was commanded to be moderate. Yet he in no way seemed to condition Palestinians getting a state on their record. His administration may think this way but he didn�t make that clear.
Middle Eastern ears won�t hear this aspect�which is part of the reason they may cheer the speech�in the way Washington policymakers intend. Inasmuch as the United States now has more credibility for them it�s because they hope it will just force Israel to give without them having to do much. When this doesn�t happen, anger will set in, intensified by the fact that the president �said� the Palestinians are in the right and should have a state right away.
Everything specific concerning Israel�s needs and demands � an end to incitement, security for Israel, end of terrorism, resettlement of refugees in Palestine � weren�t there. While Israel was specifically said to violate previous agreements on the construction within settlements issue � an assertion that�s flat-out wrong � there was no hint that the Palestinians had done so.
I can�t shake the image of Obama as the new kid in school, just moved into the neighborhood, fearful of bullies, who says anything to ingratiate himself and is ready to turn over his lunch money.
I doubt many will agree that the president is �fearful of bullies,� although more will certainly agree that ingratiating oneself with militants is not likely to end well. As for the lunch money, is your money on Hamas or Bibi Netanyahu?
(from the NY Times Opinionator blog, by Tobin Harshaw)
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