Here is the full text of President 44's June 4, 2009 Cairo speech. My review of the written text of 44's Cairo address leads me to add to yesterday's instant reaction posted on LFTC.
In all, his speech listed seven West-Islam issues: (1) violent extremism; (2) Israel-Palestinians; (3) nuclear weapons; (4) democracy; (5) women's rights; (7) economic development & opportunity.
Omitted from the printed text is 44's comment during his speech--which I vividly recall hearing--that the fact of the Holocaust is not opinion, cannot be denied, period. He said of the Arabs push re the Palestinians: But he did say this: "The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems." I cannot recall any assertion so direct as this made by 44's predecessors. He reiterated his goal of nuclear abolitionism, but in this he stands with Ronald Reagan; the difference being that Reagan coupled this idealized goal with resolute, realistic policies, unlike the utopian policies of Team 44 to date.
As for his Israel - Palestinian equivalence trope, James Taranto's Thursday Best of the Web posting nails 44, and rightly so. Key points: (1) Arabs occupied West Bank/Gaza 1948-67; (2) UN aided the immiseration of Palestinians; (3) Israel took its refugees while Arabs rejected theirs. JT concedes that truth this blunt would have been impolitic before a Muslim audience--to say nothing of contradicting Team 44's current Mideast polices. President 44 did not use "terror" or "terrorism"--preferring "extremist."
44 gilded Islam's historic record. Jews were at times treated worse in Christian Europe, but were hardly equal citizens in Muslim countries. For example, the testimony of a Jew could not be admitted in court against a Muslim, Jews paid a head tax reflecting their inferior status, etc. 44 might well have been able to make the point that Islam was less intolerant than Christian in medieval times, but instead called it a tolerant faith, which sounds like a modern religion's tolerance. That is not true.
The Fox All-Stars picked up stuff I missed: Charles Krauthammer on false equivalence: 1953 US/British coup in Iran, after oil fields were nationalized = terror; US discrimination v. women = Islamic oppression of women. Also the US has never been a colonial or imperial power. Mort Kondracke pointed out that Iran's role in cementing Hezbollah's hold on Lebanon. Stephen Hayes noted that 44's reference to Iran feeling embattled will aid militant mullahs there; 44 failed to recognize major progress in post-Saddam Iraq. Kondracke called a "crushing error" 44's failure to mention Anwar Sadat, whose peace move a generation ago made for a measure of peace--at the cost of Sadat's life.
Krauthammer saw the implication that Israel's creation was due to the Holocaust, a detail I did not see; here is the mini=paragraph I think CK had in mind:
America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.
The "tragic history" could as easily have meant the Roman expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land in 135 AD. That said, CK's WP column today debunks "the settlements myth" once and for all, though Team 'Bam is not listening:
....As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton imperiously explained the diktat: "a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
What's the issue? No "natural growth" means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them -- not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns -- even before negotiations.
To what end? Over the past decade, the U.S. government has understood that any final peace treaty would involve Israel retaining some of the close-in settlements -- and compensating the Palestinians accordingly with land from within Israel itself.
CK also notes who really is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians that 44 calls "intolerable":
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.
That's why Haj Amin al-Husseini chose war rather than a two-state solution in 1947. Why Yasser Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in 2000. And why Abbas rejected Olmert's even more generous December 2008 offer.
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.
Read all of CK's column to capture in full the disjunction between reality and the rituals of Mideast diplomacy--which Bush 43 tried to break and 44 is now re-establishing.
Daniel Pipes sees a "rapid and harsh"turn against Israel with the change of administrations, with potential severely adverse consequences for the US & Israel:
EVEN IF one ignores the folly of focusing on Jerusalemites adding recreation rooms to their houses rather than Iranians adding centrifuges to their nuclear infrastructure and even if one overlooks the obvious counterproductivity of letting Abbas off the hook - the new US approach is doomed.
First, Netanyahu's governing coalition should prove impervious to US pressure. When he formed the government in March, it included 69 MKs out of the Knesset's 120 members, well over the 61 minimum. Even if the US government succeeded in splitting off the two parties least committed to Netanyahu's goals, Labor and Shas, he could replace them with right-wing and religious parties to retain a solid majority.
Second, the record shows that Jerusalem takes "risks for peace" only when trusting its American ally. An administration that undermines this fragile trust will likely confront a wary and reluctant Israeli leadership.
If Washington continues on its present course, the result may well be spectacular policy failure that manages both to weaken America's only strategic ally in the Middle East even as it worsens Arab-Israeli tensions.
Smybolic of that turn is equating terror and settlements--suicide bombers are far worse than illegal settlements, and in the event Israel offered in 2000 to give up the entire West Bank, an offer spurned by the Palestinians. Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, said on "Morning Joe" right after the speech that Obama's audience was those in Islam who need support for moderate views. Policy change will not be in the cards, at least any time soon. CNN aired this Mideast video clip (2:17) on skeptical Arab Street & hopeful Israeli reaction to 44's address. CNN also aired real-time online reactions in the Muslim communities (3:54).
Ex-House Speaker New Gingrich said that he saw "a man who's in considerable conflict with himself"--seeking dialogue with Muslims but who cannot help blaming his own country. The speech was "fundamentally misleading" about reality and the state of the world--a "huge gap between reality & rhetoric" in 44's message. 44 failed to cite enough examples of when America helped Muslims--from various wars to the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
Wes Pruden offered in a Tuesday column examples of fantasies rampant in the Arab world, which suggests how hard reaching them with reality will be:
"He will face a nation hardened in its negative view of the United States and its role in the region, and unconvinced that this or any other American president can or will change policy," says James J. Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. He cites a poll by his brother, John Zogby, that 75 percent of the Egyptians think Mr. Obama isn't a very good president. But why would they? The Egyptians have been feeding for years on propaganda that children here wouldn't swallow. The Egyptians can't get enough of grim fairy tales.
The more the Cairo media peddles the tales, the more voracious the appetite. A decade ago Cairenes rioted over a rumor that Christians were spray-painting crosses in invisible ink on the dresses of young women. Egyptians were told that if you hold a bottle of Coca-Cola to a mirror the iconic Coke script would reveal the threat, printed backwards, "No Muhammad, No Mecca." The grand mufti of Egypt finally issued an official opinion that the Coca-Cola icon was designed in Atlanta "in the state of Georgia" more than a century earlier in English, not Arabic. He could have added that soda pop originated in a sweeter time when few Americans had even heard of either Muhammad or Mecca.
Owners of Cairo taxicabs had to begin refitting their cabs when a rumor erupted that seat belts manufactured in Israel contained an embedded chemical to render Arab men sterile. James F.X. O'Gara, writing in the Weekly Standard, notes that not even the exploding Egyptian birth rate could calm the hysteria....
Mideast maven Robert Satloff lists what 44 said and did not say in a detailed assessment of 44's speech. His assessment is first-rate and sophisticated, defying easy summary but well worth reading in full (5 pages). One noteworthy point, exposing an intellectual sin 44 avoided but which I may have committed: Obama did not use the term "Muslim world"; the term implies a unified community, which is emphatically not the case. Islamists seeking a global caliphate employ this term. Ruth King is more skeptical of both 44 & the Arabs, in an acid column well worth pondering.
Al-Jazeera (English online) reports "mixed feelings" in the Arab world. NRO posted a link to more Arab press reaction. In general, Arabs like the messenger while continuing to dislike American policy.
Former Bush 43 White House press secretary Dana Perino compares 44's speech with a Cairo address by Bush 43 to the World Economic Forum. Here is the May 18, 2008 full text of 43's speech. The WSJ editors see "Barack Hussein Bush" in Cairo, noting many Bush ideas expressed in 44's speech.
Bottom Line. President Obama delivered a message that included laudable soft power appeals for reform in Islam and in Islamic governance that no predecessor could have done as effectively. But his sentiments posit a false moral equivalence in multiple contexts, trace an historical narrative overly favorable to Islam and unfavorable to the West--although his earlier orgy of serial abject apology was not repeated--and his policies lack a full grip on reality.
In all, probably it was the best we can realistically hope for from 44 at this point. Argument will not sway him; events may. What those might be, should they come to pass, is what worries me.
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