Peter Wallsten reports from Washington on how Obama’s speech in Cairo played back home
AS A presidential candidate, Barack Obama left some fuzzy edges to his biography. He affirmed strong support for Israel but implied a strong empathy for Palestinians. His personal story played up his introduction to the black church, leaving his father’s Islamic roots in the shadows.
It was a narrative designed to ease voter scepticism of Obama’s unusual background and counter false internet rumours that he was a Muslim.
But now, with Thursday’s speech in Cairo, Obama is laying bare more of his sympathies and inclinations in the volatile area of Middle East politics. He spoke, for example, of Palestinian “resistance” – a word that can cast Israel as an illegitimate occupier.
He drew parallels between Palestinians and the struggles of black Americans in slavery, and of black South Africans during apartheid. Both references made some allies of Israel uneasy.
Moreover, in his defence of Israel’s legitimacy, Obama recalled the Holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism, ignoring the belief of some Jews that their claim to the land is rooted in the Bible and reaches back thousands of years.
A close examination of the speech underscored how Obama, four months into his presidency and five years after stepping on to the national stage, is still introducing himself – and what he stands for – to Americans and the world.
The US has come to know him as someone willing to face a sceptical audience – a Muslim world wary of US power, abortion rights opponents at Notre Dame and, during the presidential campaign, voters questioning his ties to the pastor Jeremiah Wright – and to ask that audience to move beyond old divisions.
Obama’s style has been to cast himself as ready to lead the nation beyond the entrenched battles of the Clinton and Bush years to ask Americans to look beyond old fault lines and accept a new politics of pragmatism and compromise. Now, a key test of his presidency is whether he can actually find new paths across old ideological battlefields.
In some cases, as in his speech last month at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, there were few signs that either side in the decades-long fight over abortion rights felt obliged to give ground.
On Thursday, by contrast, the discomfort of some Jewish leaders stood as a sign that Obama may be willing to accept some level of criticism from political forces at home in the course of recasting the contours of an old dispute.
Nathan Diament, public policy director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and an adviser to the White House during speech preparations, said he was struck by “some surprising word choices”. In particular, Diament was troubled that Obama shifted from his prior use of the term “Jewish state” and instead referred to a Jewish “homeland.” It is a subtle distinction, but Israel advocates worry that it implies a downgrading in status.
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League and one of America’s most ardent Israel supporters, added that Obama’s remark that Jewish aspirations for a homeland were “rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied” was incorrect and “legitimises the Arabs who say Israel has no place there.”
Foxman said that Obama’s views – among them seeing lessons for Palestinians in the struggles of oppressed blacks and others clearly on the moral high ground – stem from his own biography. “Every individual brings his own baggage,” said Foxman. “He’s an African-American . . . and he has rediscovered his Islamic roots after two years. I don’t like it, but I understand it.”
Many Jewish leaders reacted with praise for much of Obama’s speech – including his assurances that US-Israel ties were “unbreakable” and his call for Muslims to reject violence.
But there was also a wariness because the president does not have a long public record on Middle East politics.
He had built his early political career, on Chicago’s southside, by courting leaders from the large African-American and Arab- American communities. Then, as he eyed statewide and national office, he also wooed Jewish leaders.
Supporters of the Israel and Palestinian causes came to believe that, when it came to the Middle East, Obama was sympathetic to their side – even though his language always showed stalwart support for Israel. A majority of American Jews supported him in last year’s election.
“When he was a candidate, he was more careful,” asserted Ori Nir, a spokesman for the left-leaning group Americans for Peace Now. In the Cairo speech, Nir said, Obama demonstrated his true feelings, free from the constraints of a political campaign. “Now he is showing great determination and courage, knowing what is needed to lead such a momentous effort.”
Several Jewish leaders described Obama’s stance toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions as too soft in the speech. Some also complained that he did not label Hamas as a terrorist group, as he had in the campaign.
Instead, he used more diplomatic terms, saying that to “play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations . . . Hamas must put an end to violence, recognise past agreements, recognise Israel’s right to exist”.
Others said they were troubled by Obama’s apparent desire to be even-handed in his descriptions of the region’s history. They objected to how, after invoking the bloody legacy of the Holocaust and criticising Holocaust deniers, he went on to add: “On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”
“It’s the search for the perfect balance that sometimes concerns me,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. – (LA Times- Washington Post service)