A Masterly Speech from Barack Obama, But was Anyone Listening? - Daily Telegraph editorial

A Masterly Speech from Barack Obama, But was Anyone Listening? - Daily Telegraph editorial. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/5446556/A-masterly-speech-from-Barack-Obama-but-was-anyone-listening.html

Mr Obama sought to shake both sides out of their self-pitying trough of prejudice and despair. His speech amounted to a blast of militant common sense. But will it make any difference? He identified some glaring ills of the Muslim world, particularly anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and an absurd view of America as a pantomime villain. Tragically, these are not the preserve of an extremist fringe: they have entered the mainstream. An ordinary visitor to Egypt soon finds that many people genuinely blame the CIA or Mossad for the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, a crackpot conspiracy theory that is widely believed across the Muslim world. The American leader has shown his willingness to repair his country's relations with Islam. He has spelled out the steps that both sides must take to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Israel's hardline government has already spurned his call for a freeze in settlement expansion. Will Mr Obama quietly accept this veto - or exert direct pressure on Israel? The harshest question of all, however, is for the Middle East itself: does this region have the capacity for rational dialogue?

Obama's New Era in International Diplomacy - Daily Star editorial. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=102672&categ_id=17

Barack Obama's long-awaited address to the Muslim world has proven to be an event of global magnitude, and a dramatic, international projection of the bully pulpit of the American presidency. Obama's speech in Cairo was an unprecedented display of rhetorical power, coming in an important context: the last eight years of neoconservative policy based on the clash of civilizations mentality. This week, the leader of "the free world" projected his country's peaceful side, to around 1.5 billion people in 50 countries. The address was totally in line with Barack Obama's personal history; it was also a significant departure with traditional politics, just like the precedent-setting choice by the American electorate last November. Obama has committed his country to solving the Arab-Israeli struggle and its own long-simmering confrontation with Iran, as part of an agenda that includes confronting violent extremism and boosting democracy, religious freedom and women's rights. This can constitute a new era in international diplomacy, provided that Washington follow up with determination and evenhandedness.

Great Expectations - Jerusalem Post editorial. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244035002270&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

It was with mixed feelings that we watched President Barack Obama deliver his extraordinary speech to the Muslim and Arab worlds in Cairo yesterday. Critics will see the speech as incredibly naive. Yet it was also the most meaningful and coherent attempt by an American leader since 9/11 to dissociate the world's 1.5 billion Muslims from demagogic elites preaching worldwide jihad and hatred of non-believers. It is not insignificant that Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden took the president's power to persuade seriously enough to try to preempt him by issuing fresh rants. It must have galled them to see hard-line imams and Muslim Brothers listening attentively in the audience. A Gallup Poll, taken before the speech, showed 25 percent of Egyptians approving of the US under Obama, compared to 6% under George W. Bush. In A city where Holocaust denial is part of the popular culture, it was good to hear Obama telling Muslims: "Six million Jews were killed," and saying otherwise is "ignorant, and hateful." To no applause, he proclaimed: America's ties with Israel are "unbreakable."

The Chicago View - David Brooks, New York Times opinion. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/opinion/05brooks.html?ref=opinion

President Obama’s Cairo speech characteristically blended idealism with cunning. At one level, the speech was an inspiring effort to create a new dialogue in the Middle East. Obama came to a region in which the different groups have their own narratives and are accustomed to shouting past one another. Obama, as is his custom, positioned himself above the fray and tried to create a new narrative that all sides could relate to. In the Obama narrative, each side has been equally victimized by history, each side has legitimate grievances and each side has duties to perform. To construct this new Middle East narrative, Obama strung together some hard truths, historical distortions, eloquent appeals and strained moral equivalencies.

The Settlements Myth - Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post opinion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/04/AR2009060403811.html

President Obama repeatedly insists that American foreign policy be conducted with modesty and humility. Above all, there will be no more "dictating" to other countries. We should "forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions," he told the G-20 summit. In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth "start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating." An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone - Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity. 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.

Can Barack Obama's Soothing Rhetoric Douse the Muslim Militants' Flames? - Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph opinion. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/concoughlin/5446662/Can-Barack-Obamas-soothing-rhetoric-douse-the-Muslim-militants-flames.html

Short of declaring his intention to convert to Islam, it is difficult to imagine what more Barack Obama might have said during his speech yesterday to demonstrate his seriousness about healing the poisonous rift between the West and the Muslim world. After invoking the traditional Muslim welcome - "Assalaamu alaykum" or "Peace be upon you" - the President proceeded to explain how, despite his being raised a Christian, his father's family came from generations of Muslims. He acknowledged the enormous debt Western civilisation owes to Islam, from the development of algebra to the elegant refinement of calligraphy, and stressed the Islamic faith's espousal of religious tolerance and racial equality. He reminded his audience at Cairo University that John Adams, one of America's founding fathers, wrote that "the United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Muslims".

Negotiating for the Other Side - Danielle Pletka, Washington Post opinion. Yesterday in Cairo, President Obama underscored his desire to "move forward without preconditions" and negotiate with Iran "on the basis of mutual respect." So far, no takers from Tehran. But even if there were, the bottom line is that whether it's Iran, North Korea or the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, there has been little to show for years of jawboning. Worse, the history of such negotiations should give pause to the public and to Congress. Too often, US negotiators have become unwitting advocates for their adversaries, getting so caught up in the negotiating process that they cannot countenance its collapse - or their own failure - even in the face of undeniable evidence that the discussions are not succeeding. Consider the task of Dennis Ross, Obama's "special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia." From 1993 to 2000, as President Bill Clinton's "special Middle East coordinator," Ross brought enthusiasm and deep knowledge to the job. But the peace process he hoped to facilitate was constrained by US laws that reasonably required the Palestine Liberation Organization to abandon terrorism and to recognize Israel before receiving aid from the United States.