Varying Responses to Speech in Mideast Highlight Divisions

June 5, 2009
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — On one level, President Obama’s speech succeeded in reaching out to Muslims across the Middle East, winning widespread praise for his respectful approach, his quotations from the Koran and his forthright references to highly fraught political conflicts.

But Mr. Obama’s calibrated remarks also asked listeners in a region shaken by hatred to take two steps that have long been anathema: forgetting the past and understanding an opposing view. For a president who proclaimed a goal of asking people to listen to uncomfortable truths, it was clear that parts of his speech resonated deeply with his intended audience and others fell on deaf ears, in Israel as well as the Muslim world.

Again and again, Muslim listeners said they were struck by how skillfully Mr. Obama appropriated religious, cultural and historical references in ways other American presidents had not. He included four quotations from the Koran and used Arabic greetings. He took note of longstanding historical grievances like the stain of colonialism, American support for the Iranian coup of 1953 and the displacement of the Palestinian people. His speech was also embraced for what it did not do: use the word terrorism, broadly seen here as shorthand for an attack on Islam.

“He spoke really like an enlightened leader from the region, more than like a foreigner,” said Mustafa Hamarneh, the former director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan. “It was very unlike the neocolonial and condescending approach of the previous administration.”

Mr. Obama structured his speech almost like a Friday Prayer, blending a political, social and religious message. In style and substance, some regional analysts said, it sought to undermine the message of radical terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

“Al Qaeda benefited from the previous rhetoric about the clash of civilizations in mobilizing and recruiting individuals as part of fighting a crusade,” said Mohammad Abu Rumman, research editor at Al Ghad, a newspaper in Amman, Jordan. “The speech is positive and allows us to move from the religious-civilization title of the struggle to a political-realistic title.”

Perhaps inevitably, Mr. Obama angered some on both sides. Many Arabs and Israelis alike furiously rejected what they saw as his attempt to present their suffering as morally equivalent. They picked at the content of the speech almost like a biblical text.

“How dare Obama compare Arab refugee suffering to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust?” asked Aryeh Eldad, a lawmaker from the rightist National Union Party in Israel.

Ahmed Youssef, the deputy foreign minister in the Hamas government in Gaza, said, “He points to the right of Israel to exist, but what about the refugees and their right of return?”

And in Jordan, Rohile Gharaibeh, deputy secretary general for the Islamic Action Front, the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood, rejected any reference to the Holocaust. “The Holocaust was not the doing of the Muslims, it was the Europeans, and it should not come at the cost of the Palestinian people or the Arabs and Muslims,” he said.

The speech included a list of topics that have soured relations with Muslims. As each topic was addressed, from religious tolerance and women’s rights to nuclear weapons and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was greeted with warm applause or icy stares, depending on the listener.

In Iraq, after six years of occupation, missed opportunities and failed promises, there was a heavy dose of skepticism.

In cafes and restaurants, televisions were turned to sports or movies or blared music videos. When a man at a restaurant in Mosul tried to change the channel to the speech, diners shouted at him, “What a stupid speech!” In the Shorooq restaurant in Karbala, a small crowd heckled Mr. Obama as he spoke about Israel. “The most important thing is to accomplish things, not just say them,” said Alaa Sahib Abdullah, a 30-year-old lawyer.

In Iran, some praised the explicit reference to the 1953 coup that topped a popular Iranian prime minister.

“The coup has become a symbol of nationalism for Iranians, and the fact that Mr. Obama acknowledged the United States had intervened sends a positive message to all groups,” said Alireza Rajaee, a political analyst in Tehran. “Now those who favor better ties with the United States have no fear to publicly call for it because they can say that the United States has admitted to its historic mistake.”

While many listeners generally agreed with Mr. Obama’s comments about violence and extremism, some said they disliked his characterization of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which they described as bloody catastrophes.

“What is astonishing is that he condemned violence, but he didn’t say a word about what the United States did in Iraq,” said Khaled Saghieh, the executive editor of Al Akhbar, a Lebanese daily newspaper that leans toward Hezbollah. “If you want to call for a new beginning, you should at least apologize for tens of thousands of victims in Iraq.”

Political opponents of the region’s autocratic governments also expressed disappointment. “What touched on democracy and human rights in the speech was far less than what we wanted,” said Ayman Nour, Egypt’s most prominent political dissident, who was imprisoned after challenging President Hosni Mubarak in the last election.

On the flashpoint of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Mr. Obama did little to impress his Muslim audience — and barely enough to calm the anxieties of some Israelis. He angered Arabs when he equated shooting rockets into Israel with violence, a practice many here say is legitimate resistance against occupation.

From the Arab perspective, he did not offer any new proposals or suggest a time line for moving toward a Palestinian state. From the Israeli perspective, he criticized expansion of settlements and forcefully endorsed creation of an independent Palestinian state, which Israel’s current government has refused to endorse.

“As a legal specialist, he should know people are under occupation and cannot recognize the state while they are under occupation, only afterwards,” said Mr. Youssef of Hamas. “Why put pressure on Arabs and Muslims to recognize Israel while it is not recognizing our existence?”

But Israelis and Palestinians also stepped back from their own concerns and said they understood the broader significance of the speech. Even Mr. Youssef hailed the speech as historic.

Israel said in a statement that it hoped the speech “will indeed lead to a new period of reconciliation between the Arab and Muslim world and Israel.”

Politicians and analysts on both sides also highlighted statements they interpreted as shoring up their own causes.

Israelis were satisfied that Mr. Obama referred to America’s bond with Israel as “unbreakable” and defined Israel as a “Jewish homeland”; they also appreciated his unequivocal rejection of Palestinian resistance through violence and his condemnation of Holocaust denial.

On the issue of Jerusalem, one of the most delicate and intractable in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Obama avoided political confrontation, sticking instead to a theme of religious harmony. He did not call for the city, now under full Israeli control, to be divided into two capitals, Israeli and Palestinian.

“If anything, there was a hint for the unity of the city,” said Yehuda Ben Meir of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “The speech should certainly be acceptable to Israelis.”

Despite palpable longing for the president to change policies and not just tone, some seemed to understand he was trying to move the debate by balance and indirection.

“If I were in his shoes, what would I do?” said Mansoor al-Jamri, editor of Al Waast, a daily newspaper in Bahrain. “My closest friends are dictators, and the best strategic ally I have is viewed as a strategic enemy for the Muslim world. If he delivers on what he said, and it is a compromise, many people will ultimately be happy.”

Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem; Robert F. Worth from Beirut, Lebanon; Mona el-Naggar from Cairo; Taghreed El-Khodary from Gaza; Hwaida Saad from Beirut; Muhammad al-Milfy from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Nazila Fathi from Tehran; Omar al-Mani from Damascus, Syria; Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Karbala and Mosul; and Sharon Otterman from New York.

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