President Obama promised that his first trip abroad would be to a Muslim capital. He hasn’t traveled abroad yet, but he chose the Al-Arabiya satellite channel to grant his first interview since assuming office (via memeorandum).
For its part here’s how the Washington Post describes Al-Arabiya.
Obama’s comments came during his first formal television interview as president, with a correspondent from al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based satellite network that is one of the largest English-language TV outlets aimed at Arab audiences.
Very nice and innocuous. Well did anyone bother to check out the content on Al-Arabiya? I checked out the website and opposite the news of the presidential interview, were a number of opinion pieces.
Something I consider very strange, and for which I have no explanation
Something I consider very strange, and for which I have no explanation, was how survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants established the only Nazi state in the world today. A recent public opinion survey in Israel indicated high support for the campaign against Gaza, despite its cost in innocent blood, on the pretext of Hamas’ rockets.
Will anyone be held accountable for turning the Gaza Strip into a giant concentration camp during the siege?
Will a Palestinian state finally be established in the near future?
Will the masses in Arab countries now rise up against their leaders, who actually did very little to support the Palestinians?
Will Muslims finally wake up to the fact that we are one ummah and realize that the struggle of the oppressed Muslims of Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, and the rest of the world is one struggle?
We will survive this latest Nakbah too:
So, listen up dear world. We survived the 1948 Nakbah, and we survived the 1967 war, and we survived the past 60 years of oppression, concentration camps, displacement, and murder, and we will survive this genocide, and we will never cease to exist.
When “Humanity” becomes our entertainment:
Talking to all of these people and taking my neutral observations into account, eventually, I reached a simple conclusion. “Humanity”, not the Palestinians, is subjugated and oppressed by us, the people. We relegate it to our subterfuge, so as to punish those who we don’t like and we elevate it to our “death or life” cause, to benifit those who we like!
There was one pretty benign one that claimed that democracy was an Islamic contribution to the world. But it was written so generally it had no meaning.
The tone of the Washington Post’s article about the interview was laudatory:
But in tone, his comments were a stark departure from those of former president George W. Bush, who often described the Middle East conflict in terms that drew criticism from Palestinians.
By contrast, Obama went out of his way to say that if America is “ready to initiate a new partnership [with the Muslim world] based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress.”
And the reporters cast President Obama as sophisticated in implicit contrast to his predecessor.
And he reiterated a point from his inaugural address: He plans to reach out to Muslims around the world who are willing to “unclench your fist” but will go after terrorists who continue to be bent on destruction.
“Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries,” Obama said in the interview.
But given the opinion pieces that appeared on the front page of Al-Arabiya’s website, can it really be said that the Muslim world is using a language of respect?
Take this Q & A from the interview:
Q: President Bush framed the war on terror conceptually in a way that was very broad, “war on terror,” and used sometimes certain terminology that the many people — Islamic fascism. You’ve always framed it in a different way, specifically against one group called al Qaeda and their collaborators. And is this one way of —
THE PRESIDENT: I think that you’re making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations — whether Muslim or any other faith in the past — that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.
And so you will I think see our administration be very clear in
distinguishing between organizations like al Qaeda — that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it — and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions, or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop. We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down.But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.
Apparently then President Obama believes that there is a disconnect between people who espouse extreme ideas and who act on them. So the vicious op-eds are something he need not concern himself with. The problem is that the broader Muslim world is accepting of this hatred. It would have been appropriate for President Obama to speak out against it. Instead, by his silence, he effectively validates it.
Crosspsosted on Soccer Dad.
Bush actually did his utmost to disassociate Islam from the terrorism in the name of Allah. Remember his silly phrase “Islam is a religion of peace”? The twin towers were still burning when he went to a mosque to emphasize it. Evidently he, or his advosors believed that if they did not cool down the resentment mobs would burn mosques and massacre Muslims. I thought that would not happen, and I doubt any words from Bush would have stopped it if it had. Americans are not like that now.
But if there is enough terrorism against us from Muslims we might be that way in the future. Muslims kill indiscriminately in the name of Allah. Do they really think the rest of the world will not respond similarly if this goes on for much longer?
Bush and the dreaded neocons were the Muslims best friends, especially the Arabs. First, they are just about the only people in the world who think Arabs are fully adult human beings capable of governing themselves competently. Everybody else, and that includes all the clowns who screamed against the Iraq Campaign, think they are nothing but a bunch of wogs, who need to be ruled by some bloody-handed tyrant like Saddam or they will cause a pig’s breakfast of things, and be pains in the ass to themselves and everybody else.
Second, they wanted to squash the jihad terrorism before the rest of the world concludes “The problem is Muslims; no more Muslims, no more problem.”
Muslims ought to be praying to Allah that Obama continues Bush’s policies, lock, stock, and barrel. I doubt there are more than a few, outside of Iraq at any rate, who are smart enough to realize this.