Grounding himself in verses from the Koran, President
Barack Obama on Thursday promised the Muslim world a new partnership with the U.S. based on mutual interest, mutual respect – and a promise to “say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors.” And he delivered by the bucket, in a speech that first wooed his audience with lavish praise of Islam’s contribution to global civilization, and then delivered some bracing messages on key points of conflict between the U.S. and its Muslim critics.
• On Afghanistan, Obama emphasized that the Sept. 11 attacks had left the U.S. with no choice but to deny al-Qaeda a sanctuary there – squarely challenging the conspiracy theories that still prevail in Egypt and much of the Muslim world that question whether the attacks had in fact been carried out by extremists, who claimed responsibility for the event. “These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with,” he said bluntly. The U.S. would bring its troops home immediately if it could be sure extremists would have no sanctuary in Afghanistan.
• Iraq was different, a war of choice that Obama himself had opposed. But he emphasized his responsibility to help Iraqis achieve a better future while stressing that his goal was to leave Iraq to the Iraqis – and he broke with President George W. Bush by saying bluntly that the U.S. had no interest in establishing permanent bases there. He also stressed that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq by 2012, in line with an agreement with the Iraqi government. (Read the full text of Obama’s speech to the Muslim world.)
• On torture and the abuse of detainees at GuantÁnamo and elsewhere, Obama carefully distanced himself from some of the Muslim world’s most toxic grievances against the U.S. war on terrorism. The fear generated by Sept. 11 had prompted some Americans to act in ways that contradicted their country’s values and traditions, he said – a line likely to infuriate former Vice President Dick Cheney – but he stressed that he has already outlawed torture and vowed to close GuantÁnamo by next year, drawing raucous applause.
• The Israeli-Palestinian conflict marks perhaps the most enduring area of division between the U.S. and Muslim countries. On this subject, Obama’s speech was an elegant walk on a balance beam: he unapologetically stressed that the bond between the U.S. and Israel was unbreakable, emphasizing that it was based on “the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” He cited the centuries of Jewish persecution in Europe that culminated in the Holocaust, which killed more Jews than Israel’s current Jewish population. “Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.”
But he was just as forceful in describing the trauma of the Palestinians that began with their displacement by Israel’s creation in 1948, which turned many into refugees and later included suffering the humiliations of occupation. Obama’s description of a stalemate involving “two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive” offered both sides a narrative in which they could recognize their own interests. “If we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.”
Obama bluntly rebuked Hamas for terrorism, offering the example of the U.S. civil rights struggle as an alternative. He also scolded Israel for its occupation of the West Bank, saying the U.S. did not accept “the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.” He stressed both the Palestinian Authority’s responsibility for improving Palestinian governance and Israel’s obligation to ease the siege of Gaza and its security regime in the West Bank – though both sides would see the speech as short on specifics. Still, the audience warmed to a U.S. President using more forceful language on Israel than either of his two predecessors.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama offered the world the audacity to hope for peace in the Middle East and a better understanding between the United States and Muslims. Still, a president known for his soaring oratory admitted his words alone would not change a thing.
“No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust,” he said.
A vast array of knotty issues cloud American relations with the Muslim world, but none rankles like U.S. ties to Israel and massive support for the Jewish state in the heart of the Arab Middle East.
In a sharp break with U.S. policy, Obama approached his historic Cairo speech by opening a public rift last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, publicly demanding that he stop building settlements on the West Bank. The newly elected Israeli leader has refused, leaving him openly on the outs with Washington and in a position that could shorten his tenure at the top of the Jewish state’s government.
Obama said the U.S.-Israeli bond was “well-known” and “unbreakable,” but that Washington “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”
Obama’s approach was sweeping and evenhanded throughout the speech.
In the face of likely criticism at home, the deeply pragmatic American president, a black man whose father and grandfather were Muslim, owned up to serious American mistakes in relations with followers of the Prophet Muhammad. But he warned, recalling the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001: “America can never tolerate violence by extremists.”
Key to cutting through the Middle East thicket and bettering U.S.-Muslim relations, Obama said, was construction of a durable peace among Arabs and Israelis, a willingness on all sides to make difficult and politically dangerous sacrifices to reach a goal that has eluded the world for six decades.
Speaking from the lectern in an ornate hall at Cairo University in a speech also sponsored by al-Azhar, one of the oldest centers of Islamic learning, Obama issued an ambitious seven-point manifesto for improving U.S. ties with the Islamic world and its estimated 1.5 billion Muslims.
While the majority of the world’s Muslims live in Asia, the growing Islamic militancy took root largely in the Middle East. The dramatic strike against the United States on 9/11 was the work of Arabs under the direction of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who was born in Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden cited anger at U.S. support for Israel and the presence of American forces in Saudi Arabia as the guiding grievances of the terrorist organization that drew American forces into wars in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was believed to be hiding, and Iraq, which was flooded by al-Qaida fighters after the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Those wars and U.S. policy toward Israel have produced a growing belief in the Muslim world that the United States is at war with Islam.
Recalling his speech in Ankara, Turkey, earlier this year, Obama said: “America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam.”
And he restated American plans to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011 and declared U.S. forces would leave Afghanistan as soon as Washington could be sure it and neighboring Pakistan no longer were safe havens for bin Laden and his terrorist compatriots.
But Obama dwelled most heavily on an Arab-Israeli peace.
“Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed,” he said.
“It is easy to point fingers,” the president said. “But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.”
Easy to say. Harder is overcoming six decades of hatred and bloodshed, and the entrenched interests that face Obama at home, where it will be difficult to defend policy that appears to tip too far away from Israel.
