Robert Fisk: Most Arabs know this speech will make little difference
I suspect that what the Arab world wants to hear is that Obama will take his soldiers out of Muslim lands
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Independent Minds
More and more, it looks like the same old melody that Bush's lads used to sing. We're not against the Muslim world. In fact, we are positively for it. We want you to have democracy, up to a point. We love Arab "moderates" and we want to reach out to you and be your friends. Sorry about Iraq. And sorry – again, up to a point – about Afghanistan and we do hope that you understand why we've got to have a little "surge" in Helmand among all those Muslim villages with their paper-thin walls. And yes, we've made mistakes.
Everyone in the world, or so it seems, is waiting to see if this is what Barack Obama sings. I'm not sure, though, that the Arabs are waiting with such enthusiasm as the rest of the world.
I haven't met an Arab in Egypt – or an Arab in Lebanon, for that matter – who really thinks that Obama's "outreach" lecture in Cairo on Thursday is going to make much difference.
They watched him dictate to Bibi Netanyahu – no more settlements, two-state solution – and they saw Bibi contemptuously announce, on the day that Mahmoud Abbas, the most colourless leader in the Arab world, went to the White House, that Israel's colonial project in the West Bank would continue unhindered. So that's that, then.
And please note that Obama has chosen Egypt for his latest address to the Muslims, a country run by an ageing potentate – Hosni Mubarak is 80 – who uses his secret police like a private army to imprison human rights workers, opposition politicians, anyone in fact who challenges the great man's rule. At this point, we won't mention torture. Be sure that this little point is unlikely to get much play in the Obama sermon, just as he surely will not be discussing Saudi Arabia's orgy of head-chopping when he chats to King Abdullah on Wednesday.
So what's new, folks? Arabs, I find, have a very shrewd conception of what goes on in Washington – the lobbying, the power politics, the dressing up of false friendship in Rooseveltian language – even if ordinary Americans do not. They are aware that the "new" America of Obama looks suspiciously like the old one of Bush and his lads and ladies. First, Obama addresses Muslims on Al-Arabiya television. Then he addresses Muslims in Istanbul. Now he wants to address Muslims all over again in Cairo.
I suppose Obama could say: "I promise I will not make any decision until I first consult with you and the Jewish side" along with more promises about being a friend of the Arabs. Only that's exactly what Franklin Roosevelt told King Abdul Aziz on the deck of USS Quincy in 1945, so the Arabs have heard that one before. I guess we'll hear about terrorism being as much a danger to Arabs as to Israel – another dull Bush theme – and, Obama being a new President, we might also have a "we shall not let you down" theme.
But for what? I suspect that what the Arab world wants to hear – not their leaders, of course, all of whom would like to have a spanking new US air base on their property – is that Obama will take all his soldiers out of Muslim lands and leave them alone (American aid, doctors, teachers, etc, excepted). But for obvious reasons, Obama can't say that.
He can, and will, surely, try his global-Arab line; that every Arab nation will be involved in the new Middle East peace, a resurrection of the remarkably sane Saudi offer of full Arab recognition of Israel in return for an Israeli return to the 1967 borders in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 242. Obama will be clearing this with King Abdullah on Wednesday, no doubt. And everyone will nod sagely and the newspapers of the Arab dictatorships will solemnly tip their hats to the guy and the New York Times will clap vigorously.
And the Israeli government will treat it all with the same amused contempt as Netanyahu treated Obama's demand to stop building Jewish colonies on Arab land and, back home in Washington, Congress will fulminate and maybe Obama will realise, just like the Arab potentates have realised, that beautiful rhetoric and paradise-promises never, ever, win against reality.
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Comments
In some places, not.
REALITY CHECK: What's wrong with that? What's wrong with loving Arab moderates, but not crazy radical extremists? That sounds EXACTLY correct! And as for "democracy, up to a point" - that makes sense, too! It makes sense to want everyone to have democracy, but NOT if it's going to result in INSANE TERRORIST LUNATICS getting to control an entire country or entire group of people. In that case, it would be better to NOT have democracy, if a MODERATE, SANE person would be in control, rather than a crazed terrorist! Sorry, Fisk, but the stuff you're sarcastic about is EXACTLY what everyone with a head on their shoulders actually does want!
Robert Fisk says: And please note that Obama has chosen Egypt for his latest address to the Muslims, a country run by an ageing potentate - Hosni Mubarak is 80 - who uses his secret police like a private army to imprison human rights workers, opposition politicians, anyone in fact who challenges the great man's rule.
REALITY CHECK: Yes, that's how Egypt is. Yet Egypt is the nicest, most civil of the countries near Israel. So stop bashing Israel over not being able to make peace with such crazy people!
Robert Fisk says: They are aware that the "new" America of Obama looks suspiciously like the old one of Bush and his lads and ladies. First, Obama addresses Muslims on Al-Arabiya television. Then he addresses Muslims in Istanbul. Now he wants to address Muslims all over again in Cairo.
REALITY CHECK: Arabs should notice that Obama, like Bosh, likes regular everyday sane Arabs, and dislikes crazy terrorists! No problem with that!
ANOTHER REALITY CHECK: This is yet another Robert Fisk article involving the middle east and Israel that does not even mention the word "Hamas!" Folks, Hamas, and crazed radical terrorists like Hamas, are THE MAJOR PROBLEM in this situation. Yet Fisk doesn't even mention the word Hamas once! What kind of NONSENSE is this? What kind of writer intentionally always leaves out the main problem and just shifts all the blame onto Israel in every single article he writes?
Robert Fisk says: the remarkably sane Saudi offer of full Arab recognition of Israel in return for an Israeli return to the 1967 borders in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 242.
REALITY CHECK: The Saudi offer was NOT just that. The Saudi offer ALSO demanded a "right of return" that would send tons and tons of Israel-hating and Jew-hating Arab Muslims into Israel, essentially undoing Israel's very existence as a homeland for the Jewish people! It's also crazy to expect Israel to ethnically cleanse every single Jewish person out of the West Bank. It's also strange to expect the Jewish people to hand half of Jerusalem, the world's most holy city for Jews, which includes the Temple Mount, the world's most holy place for Jews, over to the people who are the biggest enemy Jews have in the world right now.
Robert Fisk continues to write unbalanced articles that always seem to favor crazy terrorists (by not even mentioning that they exist, let alone naming them, or discussing them), and shows unfair bias against Israel.
which reality are you talking about anyway? you talk like an enraged and brainwashed 16 year-old kid. is this your reality?
Israel is willing to hand MOST, but not all, of the land they won from Jordan and Egypt over to the Palestinians, if the Palestinians will be peaceful to Israel.
The problem is, a big chunk of Palestinians are INSANE, which is why HAMAS, who are IRRATIONAL, PSYCHOTIC LUNATICS, were elected to represent the Palestinians.
As long as the Palestinian religious and political leaders want to destroy Israel, it makes no sense for Israel to ever hand any land over.
Israel already handed all of Gaza over, and all that resulted was more rockets and terrorism against Israel from Gaza.
So what does Robert Fisk write about? The problems over in that region, yet he DOES NOT EVEN MENTION THE BIGGEST PROBLEM OF ALL, Hamas and crazed terrorists who want to destroy Israel.
Which is why this is yet another USELESS article on this topic from The Independent.
USELESS.
You can complain all you want that in the West Bank, on an empty hill somewhere, some Jews are building a little 2 bedroom house next to the one they have already, and blame that, when all you'd be doing is wasting your time. Which is what people love to do, I guess.
A FOURTH OF THE PLANET is STARVING and in POVERTY, yet these crazy writers just want to complain day and night that in the desert, some Jews are building a tiny house somewhere.
Stupid.
Therefore, the creation of Israel based on some religious claptrap was immoral and illegal. Only Palestinians and Palestinian Jews or Mizrahi Jews have the right to be in Palestine. The other Jews especially the European Ashkenazi Jews have no right whatsoever to be in the occupied Palestine or Israel.
Today, it was reported that the reporters accompanying Obama would be severely restricted in their movements and reporting while in Saudi Arabia. Also, today, Jewish settlers attacked Palestinians in the West Bank.
Now, if Obama sincerely wants peace in the Middle East, he must ask the dictators to release political prisoners and give people the basic freedom. In addition, he must give stern warning to Israel to stop her illegal settlements in Palestine and dismantle the existing ones.
Therefore, anything less than firm commitments, will go down the drain.
To keep focusing on Israel, instead of ignoring this, is stupid.
Arabs in Yemen are in poverty. Palestinians in the West Bank live 50x better than they do.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
www.counterpunch.org/roberts05072009.htm
The "remarkably sane Saudi offer of full Arab recognition of Israel" isn't only in return for an Israeli return to the 1967, which would make it a great offer, but calls for a "just settlement" to the Palestinians scattered in the Arab world- those in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, who live in far worse conditions than in Israel and the west bank- who are treated like fourth rate citizens banished to live in refugee camps.
This "just settlement" has already been acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership as a full right-of-return for millions of people who might have had a relative who lived in Palestine.
It mean making Israel de-facto an Arab- majority state. Destroying Israel as it is.
Nobody in his right mind would expect any country to accept that.
The Arab world needs to aspire towards real peace, not fantasies about making Israel go away.
I'm not going to automatically defend the U.S and every action it takes in the Middle East.
But dismantling all bases in the region is unrealistic and dangerous. It will leave a vacuum for Islamic terror to rise without fear of reprisal, and if you ask Arab leaders, most will likely wish the U.S to stay in the region.
I also think the Arab world has enough problems of its own- extreme poverty, lack of development, and human rights, to name a few- that to focus on the American bases in the middle east, unseen for 99% of the inhabitants, really seems like a weird scapegoat.
At this point it seems like the only thing Obama wants to do is to "appease" everyone. As if that would solve anything. I give his administration a few months before they realize they are still in square-one and nothing has changed- the dangerous fundamentalists will still hate the west.
But now they will no longer fear it.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/05/2
Figures you like him, adolf
they never did let them try ,not once .yet in other muslim nations ,like turkey,malaysia,indonisia and so on the islamists form governements ,run the nation ,sometimes for the better ,sometimes for the worst .but they rule .
president obama has to free himself and his nation of this fear .let them run for once ,dont forget that the arab world ,has for most of its history been run by islamists ,let them run let them bear the burden for once ,and maybe change will come .
always the rhetoric,but now in beirut we see the opposition talking about political and social reforms,and general aoun despite his difficult alliance he is talking to the lebanese as one person just like a real delegate .as for the other side(taboule) all they do is attack the opposition,telling them how israel will destroy lebanon again,how the west will treat us as outcasts,how the west will leave lebanon at the mercy of iran and israel.they dont tell the man on the street what he needs to know of how will they make their life better.and that is why they will loose power come monday.this is the reality ,mr robert and the will of the people needs to overcome
(Aside from what I wrote, of course, haha)
First of all - good article by Fisk, even if of course can't say everything in that short space.
exec_ceo: Do you exepect everyone who wright about this subject to every singel time right everything about it? Then every article would be the length of a full size encyclopedia - at least.
The jewist claim to the land is based on Moses telling his people god had told him it was theirs. Never mind the land was not empty said Moses, because god had told him the jews should just simply drive the ones living there of since they where not of the "chosen people".
This is the basis for the jewish claim - a prophecy told by Moses.
So god orderd the etnic cleansing of the jews holy land and everone lived happily ever after.
Untill the jews themselves where driven out themselves of course.
You might see poethic justice in this, but the jews didn't of course.
You might say that god had forsaken the jews and chosen another people as the "chosen ones", but the jews didn't of course.
You might say "sour grapes" and find some other place, and for the most part jews did just that.
They left and disperced across the world, but because of antisemetism they where persecuted and so the dream of returning to the fantasy paradise of "the old land" lingerd for centuries.
This is the same as for almost every immigrant group, but because of the outside preassure of antisemetism and the inside preassure of religion it never died in the jewish comunity.
And then came the holocaust, and the white liberal guilt for not doing more to stop it, and suddenly the jews where back.
This is the background almost no-one talks about, the story seems always to beguin with the jewish state of -48, when you actually should go back 2000 years or more to fully understand it.
The reason is of course that the jews don't want their claim to the land discussed - it was given to them by god and that's it, no questions should be asked then, the god has spoken.
But living in an age of reason reasonable men understand that there was no god telling Moses the land was the jews to have - that's just fiction.
Emagine Moses leading the jews for 40 years in the deasert. After 39 years you'd think the questions from back of the line would be pretty angry, right?
Line: "Why aren't we there yet?! You said you would lead us to the promised land, but we've been walking for forever and my feet hurts!"
Moses: "Eh, it's just a little bit longer, just on the other side of that dune - I'm sure of it!"
Line: "That's what you said about the last couple of hundred dunes to - do you even have any idea where your going?!"
Moses: "Eh, of course I do, god told me - remember? I shouldn't be much longer now. You'll wait right here and I'll climb that hill and take a look around, ok?"
Line: "You do that and we'll start melting the gold..., eh I mean making the food while you're gone"
And wouldn't you know it - just as the people was about to desert Moses he came back down the mountain and told them he found the promised land! What good luck for Moses!
In conclusion - the jewish claim to tha land is based on fairytales and ethnic cleansing and is in no way, shape or form a legitimate reason for over 2000 year later doing the same thing all over again.
But that is what happend and without understanding and accepting the truth that the religious fundamentalists on both sides can not be alowed to shape political discussions, this question will never be solved.
For it's as much part of the fundamentalistis jewish belif as the dito muslim to treat the question as one of property destined by god and murder and etnic cleansings sanctioned by god.
You have to take ignorant religious belife out of the picture so intelligent human beings can discuss complicated political questions based on the reality that exist today - that's the only solution that will work.
Some intellectually honesty on both sides of this debate would be a good start.
Thanks for trying to post some reason. I hope they won't be too unpleasant to you.
2. I'll pull out of Iraq and hand all the oil development contracts to the Russians! I can just see the old Bush-Cheney-ExxonMobil axis going for that one.........
3. If you don't stop beheading people I won't buy your oil any more! Well, I'm sure that there are lots of places outside of Saudi Arabia who've got reams of unused barrels to sell to the US juggernaut, including that hero of US-Mercosur relations, Hugo Chavez........
I'm sure these somewhat unorthodox negotiating tactics are firmly in the forefront of President Obama's thoughts, as he seeks a game-changing initiative to bring peace to a region which does not yet appear to be ready to embrace it...........
Yeah right..........
99.8% of the middle east is controlled by Arabs/Muslims/Persians
Jews have little tiny Israel, which is about 0.2% of the middle east
But mentally ill idiots spend day and night trying to justify destroying little Israel.
There are a lot of crazy people on this planet. Several of whom post on this website.
Let's hope that beyond Barack's usual empty Oblahlah, there's a real reason for his visit to Egypt: To get the anti-Hamas ball rolling again.
There are two things that have to go for Palestinians to finally get their homeland: One is Likud, and the other is Likud's Frankenstein monster Hamas. It was Israel's Stern Gang terrorist Likudnik PM Yitzak Shamir who set up Hamas in Gaza so that the Wahhabi nutjobs could infect Palestinians with their Islamic Sharia crap and gets their minds off of national liberation. Bibi Netanyahu then armed Hamas so that it could kick off its suicide bombing campaign and help Likud sink the Oslo process.
Bibi is back again but not for long; he's sure to screw everything up again just like he did last time. His polls are already in free-fall. When Bibi and his Russian gangster pal are gone, Tzipi Livni can resume her peace efforts. Barack Obummmer can help her by using this interval to coordinate with Mubarak and get rid of Hamas for good, so that Livni can conclude negotiations with Abbas without any terrorists in her hair throwing spanners (or rather Kassams) in the works.
Hamas may end up serving a useful purpose in the end: Bringing Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt together to fight a common enemy.
Promote economic development (USA) or take school children hostage?
Advance human understanding (USA) or devolve to subhuman, psuedo-culture in the name of the sh*tty, evil religion?
You know what? There's no point arguing with someone beneath me. You are just jealous that the American-European culture is better than the filth that thinks terrorism brings them virgins.
Saved the world from fascism - actually that was primarily the Soviet Union. Although the U.S. certainly put some effort in, the reason that there were so few Germans to fight against the Normandy landings was that most of them were in the east, trying desperately to hold off the Soviets for as long as they could.
Promote economic development - well, if you mean using poor countries for cash crops, sending weapons to Israel or creating a debt mountain that is in the process of seriously damaging the world economy - possibly.
It's interesting that the U.S. spends more on war than the entire rest of the world put together and yet can't afford universal healthcare.
Advance human understanding - possibly your best point - which it seems to have done by warping Christianity so it devolves into subhuman, psuedo-culture in the name of the sh*tty, evil religion.
Did you know that Christ was actually against war?
war.Peace can not be achieved through war,like violence can not succeed.It's really great to hear the
president of US appreciating muslim contribution to world civilization through science,arts and culture.
Though this has been translated as sweet talks,one can take it as an effort to please those who had
wanted this.This can touch some hearts.He also wanted to tell the audience that he is a christian.Well,
along with that arabs are expected to digest the fact that US has a relationship with Israel that is
unbreakable.It's a sweet plus....America has a history of 300 yrs and Israel 60yrs but Misr, Shamm
Mesopotamia, far too long.
Dear President Obama,truth has yet to surface.
As for Fisk having not "met an Arab ... who thinks Obama's outreach lecture is going to make much difference" I'll bet if he looked a little harder he could find a few. The audience in Cairo certainly seemed enthusiastic -- and no shoes seem to have been launched.
I find opinions like this to be a counsel of despair -- an apparently leftist critique that ends up amounting to something not too much different from the Fox News line on Obama.
A presidential speech is just that, a speech: an occasion to enunciate the President's views and convey the direction in which he wants to take the US government. Compared to what we've endured under the Republicans, this was a bracing declaration of a new direction. And Obama cannot just snap his fingers and change everything overnight. It will take years, and his administration will have formidable opponents to the policies he is trying to effect.
Mr. Fisk should by all means hold Obama's administration accountable to live up to this fine rhetoric. I am very disappointed in many of the things the administration seems to be caving on. But simply as a speech, and an announcement of the spirit of the new direction Obama wants the US to take, I thought it was superb.
As for Fisk having not "met an Arab ... who thinks Obama's outreach lecture is going to make much difference" I'll bet if he looked a little harder he could find a few. The audience in Cairo certainly seemed enthusiastic -- and no shoes seem to have been launched.
I find opinions like this to be a counsel of despair -- an apparently leftist critique that ends up amounting to something not too much different from the Fox News line on Obama.
A presidential speech is just that, a speech: an occasion to enunciate the President's views and convey the direction in which he wants to take the US government. Compared to what we've endured under the Republicans, this was a bracing declaration of a new direction. And Obama cannot just snap his fingers and change everything overnight. It will take years, and his administration will have formidable opponents to the policies he is trying to effect.
Mr. Fisk should by all means hold Obama's administration accountable to live up to this fine rhetoric. I am very disappointed in many of the things the administration seems to be caving on. But simply as a speech, and an announcement of the spirit of the new direction Obama wants the US to take, I thought it was superb.
it was no joke
Without losing their solders lives !
SIMPLY PA doing Dirty jobfor=($ + V.I.P+cars).