Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2009, pages 22-25

Four Views

President Obama’s Cairo Speech

The Two Surprises of the Obama Speech

By William Pfaff

President Barack Obama gestures as he delivers his highly anticipated address to the Muslim world on June 4, 2009 in the Grand Hall of Cairo University (AFP photo/Saul Loeb).

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama’s eloquent Cairo speech was distinguished by the quality of his previous major speeches, that of speaking as an adult to adults. He promised to say what he thought, and did so on all of the topics he addressed. He was not a comfortable guest for the Egyptian government, although a courteous and honest one.

He said things many of his listeners would have preferred not to hear, among them his host, President Hosni Mubarak, to whom he indirectly recommended non-repressive domestic policies with freedom of speech, a suggestion that if followed could end by terminating the career of the Egyptian president, and aborting that of the latter’s son and presumptive successor.

Obama’s most immediately important statement was his adamant reiteration of his conviction that Israeli settlement expansion must be halted, in conformance with the commitment made by Israel in the road map agreement, and that an independent Palestinian state must come into being.

This uncompromised declaration is a blow to the Netanyahu government in Israel, which has expected that its political influence inside the United States would prevent the Obama administration from interfering with its continuing expansion of Jewish colonization of annexed Palestinian territories.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made colonization of Palestinian lands the policy of his government. He also declares that his government will not accept a Palestinian state. He speaks of an arrangement by which non-annexed Palestinian territory could become an economic dependency of Israel, but under no circumstances sovereign.

With his American upbringing, he long has traded in Israeli politics on his supposed ability to “read” American politics, and get his way by bluff and threat, and blackmail when necessary, should an American government reject Israeli government demands.

This time he has miscalculated, mistaking President Obama’s determination, and probably misestimating the American political and popular mood. During the Bush years, the cost to American national interests and reputation in the Middle East of uncritical support for Israel became so blatant that a significant shift in public opinion has occurred.

This is certainly true in serious American circles, in the past aware of the damage being done to American interests. But the control of Congress by the so-called Israel Lobby (Likud Lobby is closer to the truth, since the right wing of the Israeli political spectrum has for years controlled the public presentation of the Israeli case in the United States) has made protest seem futile, and dangerous to political and academic careers. This no longer is entirely true, in part due to the calm discussion of the Lobby by the John Mearsheimer-Stephen Walt book two years ago, the growing willingness of a part of the press to deal with the issue honestly, and the effect of events themselves in the Middle East.

The invasion of Lebanon two years ago, and the assault on Gaza last year, were not episodes which won the sympathy of very many serious American political observers, and they shocked a significant part of American public opinion.

We are at an interesting point. Israeli voters elected Netanyahu. But this electorate is also said to be deeply discouraged over the possibility of peace with the Arabs. There is a significant drain of Ashkanazim population toward Europe and the United States, and a steady growth in millenarian-minded, ultra-Orthodox immigrants coming to witness the Last Times and the Messiah’s arrival. A third of the settler population is composed of American sectarian Orthodox Jews.

The Israeli prime minister is now trapped, since Obama has called his bluff. His friends complain that Obama is not living up to a Bush administration promise that the road map agreement was just a scrap of paper Israel could ignore.

They say they had that assurance from Elliot Abrams and Stephen J. Hadley. But if they were foolish enough to think that a new Obama administration would value the secret and illegal advice of secondary and notoriously pro-Israel figures in the Bush administration over the signed documents of the Israeli and American governments, they were, in the phrase, kidding themselves.

Time seems to be up for duplicity. Yet there now are nearly a half million people in the illegal settlements, caught between the encouragement of Netanyahau and his American Likud allies, and the American government of Barack Obama. What will they now do?

The second noteworthy declaration by Barack Obama was that he intends to withdraw all American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan; to establish no American bases there; and to demand no privileged access to the region’s resources.

This is surely as much of a blow to Pentagon planners as his statement to Israel was to the settler community. It would seem a renouncement of the American military program of world-girdling strategic bases, pursued for the past 30 years. It comes as more of a surprise than the Obama statement concerning Israel. It could be much more important to America and its future. One awaits elaboration.

William Pfaff is the author of eight books on American foreign policy, international relations, and contemporary history. Copyright © 2009 by Tribune Media Services International. All rights reserved.

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Obama’s Challenge to Both Arabs and Jews

By Patrick Seale

The bold resolve of U.S. President Barack Obama to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict poses a clear challenge to Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Obama’s challenge to Arab leaders is equally great: He is offering them a unique—probably never to be repeated—chance to salvage a Palestinian state from the defeats and disasters of the past six decades.

Will both sides rise to the occasion?

Obama’s determination to settle the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of a two-state solution is no longer in doubt. It is a message he conveyed from the first hours of his presidency, and which he repeated with great conviction at Cairo University in his historic address of June 4.

America, he declared, would not turn its back on the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own. “This is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with the patience that the task requires.” A two-state solution, he insisted, was in Israel’s interest, the Palestinians’ interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest.

Netanyahu faces a painful dilemma. If he decides to fight Obama, he puts Israel’s lifeline to the United States at risk. But if he bends to Obama’s will, his right-wing partners will desert him and his government will fall.

In reality, the choice may not be so stark. Netanyahu will do everything to avoid an open clash. He will seek to negotiate. He will propose a compromise. He will duck and weave. He will delay by all possible means the moment of choice. And, if one or two extremist parties do defect from his coalition, he may seek to build a new coalition with Labor, and with Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima party.

But the basic choice will remain. Netanyahu must either confront the settlers—as Obama is, in effect, asking him to do—or give in to them, and risk losing American support. Greater Israel or peace with the entire Arab and Muslim world. The settlers or America. At the end of the day, these are the ineluctable choices Israel is called upon to make.

It may be that the United States is seeking to engineer Netanyahu’s downfall. He and his allies—the land-grabbing settlers, the fanatical rabbis, the Arab-hating racist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—are diehard opponents of Obama’s vision of peace and reconciliation. It is hard to see how he can arrive at any sort of compromise with them.

Perhaps Washington’s calculation is that psychological and political pressure, such as Obama is now exerting, will isolate the extremists and rally a majority of Israelis to the two-state solution. The coming months will determine whether this is possible.

Meanwhile, members of rival Palestinian factions continue to kill each other as if unaware that they are gambling with their national cause and playing straight into Netanyahu’s hands. Their infighting is their greatest gift to him. They are providing him with the perfect pretext to avoid the choice Obama is insisting on.

When will the leaders of Fatah and Hamas grasp the simple truth that if they want a Palestinian state they must now close ranks? If they cannot surmount their petty disputes, they should withdraw and make way for others, less obsessed with the personal and ideological quarrels of the past.

The responsibility of Arab leaders is now very great. They alone—and principally the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and perhaps some Gulf states as well—have the leverage over the Palestinian factions to force them to put their disorderly house in order.

Is it too much to expect the Arab states—at this crucial moment in Obama’s presidency—to put aside their own “Cold War” disputes and call a meeting of all Palestinian factions at which a new common charter would be drafted and put before the world?

Surely Hamas can be persuaded to exchange the long-term truce it has offered Israel for a full-fledged peace? Surely it can pledge to recognize Israel once a Palestinian state is created? Surely renouncing violence—such as Obama is demanding—is no great sacrifice at this historic moment, and is perhaps the best way to persuade Israel to renounce its own far greater violence?

The unvarnished truth is that if the Arabs want peace, and if the Palestinians want a state, they must raise their sights from their internal conflicts and give Obama—this visionary president whose appearance at the helm of America is nothing short of miraculous—the support he needs. If they think Obama can succeed without their help, they are much mistaken.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. Copyright © 2009 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global

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Obama’s Worthy Gesture

By Rami G. Khouri

President Barack Obama in Cairo June 4 provided a combination Bible and Qur’an class mixed in with some American civics lessons—a touching, sincere performance that gets high marks for boldness and empathy, but nevertheless leaves a lingering hollowness in some areas.

We should judge him by his intentions, measured by what can emanate from a single speech. In this respect, there is good news and bad news. The good news reflects a new approach and a change in tone, rhetoric and style, offering some hope where haplessness and hypocrisy once ruled Washington’s work in the Middle East.

Obama sketched out a series of issues—including Arab-Israeli peace, democracy, Iraq, development, political violence, women, pluralism—that are important to Arabs and Muslims. He grasped the grievances of ordinary men and women, and captured the nuanced, multi-sectoral realities of our societies. He spoke of our worlds as they are, not as Fox television, Israeli zealots, or neo-conservative simpletons try to paint us.

Most significantly, his acknowledging our historical grievances about the conduct of Western powers in our region—colonialism, exploitative proxy relationships, the 1953 coup in Iran—and tacitly admitting past culpability, are tremendously important for removing the burdens of the past and starting afresh in our relations.

He also articulated virtually equal national rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He asked both sides simultaneously to move on their commitments to making peace (i.e., guaranteeing Israel’s security on its own is no longer the starting point for talks), and he reaffirmed his personal involvement in this quest. His comments on Hamas will be seen correctly as the start of an American public dialogue with Hamas, which is welcomed. Equally heartening was his pledge to work with any democratically elected government that respected all its citizens’ rights—a possible quiet nod to Hezbollah and Hamas.

Framing his entire approach was his plea and pledge that we listen and learn from each other, and interact on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect. This is why we love American values, which we mostly encounter in our societies on the level of words.

The bad news is that none of this is really new; he offered no substantive indication of whether this declaration of principles of American policy would be followed up with practical policy implementations; he continues to reflect basic contradictions and insensitivities in some aspects of American policies toward the Arab-Islamic world; and, he persists in allowing Osama bin Laden to drive Washington’s agenda, which is obsessed with “Islam” at the expense often of pursuing sensible policies.

The core weakness of Obama’s speech and approach is his continuing confusion between religion and politics. He eloquently spoke of the place of Islam and Muslims in American society and history and his own life story—which is impressive, but totally irrelevant. We who know and love both societies also know that Islam and America are soul brothers, a religion and a country deeply linked through values and faith. He wastes our time and his in preaching on this. He would do better to focus on the policy issues that are the cause of tensions between American policy and many Muslims, i.e., the foreign policy of a country and the sentiments and rights of individuals in other countries. Here, we need action, not just fine rhetoric—but it sure is nice to hear positive, sensitive, comprehensive rhetoric for a change.

It is awkward for Obama to make violent extremism the number one issue in a list of challenges in a speech about and for the Islamic world. An absolute commitment to equal rights and justice as the number one issue would have been smoother. Similarly, mentioning Iran only in the context of the nuclear proliferation threat was un-cool.

Obama joins Jimmy Carter as the only American president since Kennedy who speaks from the heart, and whose sincerity is beyond doubt. His mentioning the American civil rights movement as an example of how nonviolent resistance can succeed was powerful and pertinent—perhaps though, we receive it slightly differently than he meant it. His sincere review of the principles the United States will pursue in the Arab-Islamic world appears to the Arab world today the way the U.S. Constitution did to African-Americans in 1956: a stunning commitment to human rights and values that is grievously contradicted by realities on the ground.

The fact that almost every fine principle articulated by Obama in Cairo was contradicted by harsh American policies throughout the region should not detract from the importance of his visit or the potential power of the ideas in his speech. Washington’s hard policies still smother its soft power out here in the swamp. Obama’s speech in diplomatic terms was more than putting lipstick on a pig—perhaps closer to aftershave lotion on a camel.

He sought a new beginning, though, which we all badly need. So let’s now put away the Bible and Qur’an classes, and get down to the tough business of forging better policies. Obama’s gesture deserves return gestures of equal magnitude from Arabs, Iranians, others in the Islamic world, and Israelis, starting with great but sincere speeches.

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri. Distributed by Agence Global.

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The Tone and the Music

By Uri Avnery

One man spoke to the world, and the world listened.

He walked onto the stage in Cairo, alone, without hosts and without aides, and delivered a sermon to an audience of billions. Egyptians and Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, Sunnis and Shi’i, Copts and Maronites—and they all listened attentively.

He unfolded before them the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language—a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatism.

Barack Hussein Obama—as he took pains to call himself—is the most powerful man on earth. Every word he utters is a political fact.

“A historic speech,” pronounced commentators in a hundred languages. I prefer another adjective:

The speech was right.

Every word was in its place, every sentence precise, every tone in harmony. The masterpiece of a man bringing a new message to the world.

From the very first word, every listener in the hall and in the world felt the honesty of the man, that his heart and his tongue were in harmony, that this is not a politician of the old familiar sort—hypocritical, sanctimonious, calculating. His body language was speaking, and so were his facial expressions.

That’s why the speech was so important. The new moral integrity and the sense of honesty increased the impact of the revolutionary content.

And a revolutionary speech it certainly was.

In 55 minutes, it not only wiped away the eight years of George W. Bush, but also much of the preceding decades, from World War II on.

The American ship has turned—not with the sluggishness everyone would have expected, but with the agility of a speedboat.

That is much more than a political change. It touches the roots of the American national consciousness. The president spoke to hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens no less than to a billion Muslims.

The American culture is based on the myth of the Wild West, with its good guys and bad guys, violent justice, dueling under the midday sun. Since the American nation is composed of immigrants from all over the world, its unity seems to require a threatening, world-encompassing evil enemy, like the Nazis and the “Japs,” or the “Commies.” After the collapse of the Soviet empire, this role was taken over by Islam.

Cruel, fanatical, bloodthirsty Islam; Islam as the religion of murder and destruction; an Islam lusting for the blood of women and children. This enemy captured the imagination of the masses and supplied material for television and cinema. It provided lecture topics for learned professors and fresh inspiration for popular writers. The White House was occupied by a moron who declared a world-wide “War on Terror.”

When Obama is now uprooting this myth, he is revolutionizing American culture. He wipes away the picture of one enemy, without painting another in its place. He preaches against the violent, adversary attitude itself, and starts to work to replace it with a culture of partnership between nations, civilizations and religions.

I see Obama as the first great messenger of the 21st century. He is the son of a new era, where the economy is global and the whole of humanity faces the danger to the very existence of life on the planet Earth. An era where the Internet connects a boy in New Zealand with a girl in Namibia in real time, where a disease in a small Mexican village spreads all over the globe within days.

This world needs a world law, a world order, a world democracy. That’s why this speech really was historic: Obama outlined the basic contours of a world constitution.

While Obama proclaims the 21st century, the government of Israel is returning to the 19th.

That was the century when a narrow, egocentric, aggressive nationalism took root in many countries. A century that sanctified the belligerent nation which oppresses minorities and subdues neighbors. The century that gave birth to modern anti-Semitism and to its response—modern Zionism.

Obama’s vision is not anti-national. He spoke with pride about the American nation. But his nationalism is of another sort: an inclusive, multi-cultural and non-sexist nationalism, which includes all the citizens of a country and respects other nations.

This is the nationalism of the 21st century, which is inexorably striving toward supranational, regional and world-wide structures.

Compared to this, how miserable is the mental world of the Israeli Right! How miserable is the violent, fanatical-religious world of the settlers, the chauvinist ghetto of Netanyahu, Lieberman and Barak, the racist-fascist closed-in world of their Kahanist allies!

One has to understand this moral and spiritual dimension of Obama’s speech before considering its political implications. Not only in the political sphere are Obama and Netanyahu on a collision course. The underlying collision is between two mental worlds which are as distinct from each other as the sun and the moon.

In Obama’s mental world, there is no place for the Israeli Right or its equivalents elsewhere. Not for their terminology, not for their “values,” and still less for their actions.

In the political sphere, too, a huge gap has opened up between the governments of Israel and the USA.

During the last few years, successive Israeli governments have ridden the wave of Islamophobia that has spread throughout the West. The Islamic world was considered the deadly enemy, America was galloping grimly towards the Clash of Civilizations, every Muslim was a potential terrorist.

Israel’s right-wing leaders could rejoice. After all, the Palestinians are Arabs, the Arabs are Muslims, the Muslims are Terrorists—so that Israel was assured a central place in the war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness.

That was a Garden of Eden for racist demagogues. Avigdor Lieberman could advocate the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel, Ellie Yishai could enact laws for the revocation of the citizenship of non-Jews. Obscure members of the Knesset could grab headlines with bills that might have been conceived in Nuremberg.

This Garden of Eden is no more. Whether the implications will become clear quickly or slowly—the direction is obvious. If we continue on our path, we will become a leper colony.

The tone makes the music—and this applies also to the president’s words on Israel and Palestine. He spoke at length about the Holocaust—honest and courageous words, full of empathy and compassion, which were received by the Egyptians in silence but with respect. He stressed Israel’s right to exist. And without pausing, he spoke about the suffering of the Palestinian refugees, the intolerable situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own.

He spoke respectfully about Hamas. Not anymore as a “terrorist organization,” but as a part of the Palestinian people. He demanded that they recognize Israel and stop violence, but also hinted that he would welcome a Palestinian unity government.

The political message was clear and unequivocal: the two-state solution will be put into practice. He himself will see to that. Settlement activity must cease. Unlike his predecessors, he did not stop at speaking about “Palestinians,” but uttered the decisive word: “Palestine”—the name of a state and a territory.

And no less important: the Iran war has been struck from the agenda. The dialogue with Tehran, as a part of the new world, is not limited in time. As from now, no one can even dream about an American OK for an Israeli attack.

How did official Israel respond? The first reaction was denial. “An unimportant speech.” “There was nothing new.” The establishment commentators picked out a few pro-Israeli sentences from the text and ignored all the others. And after all, “these are just words. So he talked. Nothing will come out of it.”

That is nonsense. The words of the president of the United States are more than just words. They are political facts. They change the perceptions of hundreds of millions. The Muslim public listened. The American public listened. It may take some time for the message to sink in. But after this speech, the pro-Israel lobby will never be the same as it was before. The era of “foile shtik” (Yiddish for sneaky tricks) is over. The sly dishonesty of a Shimon Peres, the guileful deceits of an Ehud Olmert, the sweet talking of a Bibi Netanyahu—all these belong to the past.

The Israeli people must now decide: whether to follow the right-wing government toward an inevitable collision with Washington, as the Jews did 1,940 years ago when they followed the Zealots into a suicidal war on Rome—or to join Obama’s march toward a new world.

Uri Avnery is a former Knesset member and a founder of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom <http://www.gush-shalom.org>.

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