To some degree, I understand the argument that President Obama’s speech in Cairo yesterday wasn’t much different from a speech that President Bush would have given.
And if you read some of the more detailed analyses of the speech (like Bookworm‘s or the Provocateur’s) you can clearly see the good points and the bad points. And yet when I wrote my first post on the speech it was negative.
Content, though, is one thing. Context is another matter entirely.
Consider my initial post on the speech. I’ll admit, I hadn’t read the whole speech at that point. I was relying on a Washington Post report. What was the emphasis of the Post’s report?
At the same time, he said, “it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland . . . They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”
The audience, which had stayed silent while Obama described the U.S.-Israel relationship, anti-Semitism and the legacy of the Holocaust, broke into warm applause.
Obama sharply criticized Israel’s policy of settlement construction in lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, parts of which the Palestinians envision as their future state. He said “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”
The media acts as a filter and a magnifier. Sure later on, President Obama talked about how the Arab states ought not to let the Palestinian issue stop them from political reform, but this was early in the speech. President Obama had to know two things. One is that his audience would love his evocation of the Israeli occupation and the other is that most major news organizations. well aware of the diplomatic maneuvering with Prime Minister Netanyahu would emphasize the rebuke he was directing towards Israel.
Another thing the President could count on, is that the major media reporting would gloss over the fact that his demands on Israel represented a sharp break from previous administrations. Even the administration of Bill Clinton.
Still one could argue that the President first rebuked the Arab world for its Holocaust denial, so the rebuke of Israel was part of a balancing act. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t buy the balancing act but still its editors wrote:
The President even went one better than his predecessor, with a series of implicit rebukes to much of the Muslim world. There would have been no need for him to specify that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis if Holocaust denial weren’t rampant in the Middle East, including Egypt, …
But think about that for a moment. Egypt, which made peace with Israel over 30 years ago, still propagates some of the most vile antisemitism in the region. And go back to the Washington Post report. The President’s comments on the Holocaust elicited no response from the audience. And this is in a country that’s been paid $2 billion a year for its ostensible peace with Israel!
The President’s remarks about Holocaust denial weren’t part of any larger campaign. They were uttered in a vacuum. Has the President pursued this issue as actively and publicly as he’s pursued the “settlement” issue?
A similar analysis applies to the President’s exhortation to the Arab world not to use the Palestinian issue as an excuse for blocking political reform. This isn’t an issue he’s promoted elsewhere. So in effect the good statements the President made, appear to be lip service to moderation, while he pursues a path of trying to pressure the one target he believes is susceptible to pressure. He does not care if his exhortations to the Arab world are heeded. He can say the America’s bond with Israel is “unbreakable” but if his actions demonstrate that he’s only interested in getting to a Palestinian “yes” regardless of the cost to Israel, then his assurance is meaningless.
The editors of the Washington Post fear that there’s only one message that the Arab world will hear from the speech. They recommend that the President continue to push these issues. An AP writer took the same message from the speech and wrote a news “analysis” that puts the onus of peacemaking on Israel.
There are other contexts that were missing from his speech. JoshuaPundit criticizes the President for failing to recognize how mainstream extremism is in Islam. Wolf Howling shows that the President rewrote history.
Rather it appears that what’s driving the President is to make new friends even if they’re enemies, at the expense of an old friend. And I don’t think h’es stupid or naive. I think he is very smart and very driven ideologically. More and more Ali Abunimah looks vindicated.
UPDATE: One other point that has to be made is that President Obama sought a “peace gesture” from the Arab world and was rebuffed.
But when he meets in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, with King Abdullah, he should be prepared for a polite but firm refusal, Saudi officials and political experts say. The Arab countries, they say, believe they have already made their best offer and that it is now up to Israel to make a gesture, perhaps by dismantling settlements in the West Bank or committing to a two-state solution.
“What do you expect the Arabs to give without getting anything in advance, if Israel is still hesitating to accept the idea of two states in itself?†said Mohammad Abdullah al-Zulfa, a historian and member of the Saudi Shura Council, which serves as an advisory panel in place of a parliament.
Unlike in the case of settlements where President Obama issued an unqualified disagreement with Israel, the President stepped very gingerly around this rebuff.
The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems.
…
We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away.
If he were being balanced, he would have specifically mentioned that Arab states ought to treat Israel as a legitimate state. He didn’t even ask them to do that publicly.
Instead the President took a diplomatic dispute with Israel and amplified it. And he failed to address the Saudi refusal to offer even a symbolic gesture to Israel.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
