There he was, in the heart of the Muslim world, explaining the USmindset to Muslims and the world of Islam to Americans, with the bearing of a college professor.
In his long-awaited speech at the University of Cairo on Thursday, US President Barack Obama took a measured, on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand approach to some of the most charged issues on the planet.
There were no new policy pronouncements on the Mideast, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons or other flashpoints in the Muslim world.
Instead, the speech was an attempt to at least get people talking — and listening — again.
“What’s new here is that people are listening to this president,” said Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland. “They heard him empathize with their issues. They heard him express an understanding not only of their religion and culture, but their issues.”
The president may have empathized, but he didn’t emote.
As he has done in past speeches on the difficult issues of race and abortion, Obama seemed to position himself as a sort of neutral mediator, laying out the legitimate grievances of both sides — in this case, most notably the Israelis and Palestinians.
There were 37 “buts” in his speech, many employed in the cause of evenhandedness.
The fears and angers provoked in Americans by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were understandable, he said, “but in some cases it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals.”
He’s committed to fighting negative stereotypes of Islam, Obama said, “but that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America.”
Israelis and Palestinians alike have legitimate complaints and aspirations, he said, “but if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth.”
The son of a cultural anthropologist, Obama seemed to assume that mantle himself in explaining the angers and resentments of the present through the prism of the past. It was an extraordinary role for a US president, one made more plausible by who he is — Barack Hussein Obama, born of a mother with Christian roots in Kansas and a father with Muslim beginnings in Kenya.
For every grievance on one side, Obama found another on the other.
The president spoke of the horrors of the Holocaust and said to deny it had happened was hateful.
“On the other hand,” he said, “it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslim and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”
Iran has played a role in hostage-taking and violence against Americans, he said, but the US earlier had played a role in overthrowing a democratically elected government there.
To a trio of former speechwriters for former president George W. Bush, Obama’s attempt at fairness smacked of moral equivalence run amok.
“He’s comparing things that shouldn’t be compared,” Marc Thiessen said.
“The president of the United States is not an honest broker between America and the rest of the world,” David Frum said. “He’s the leader of the United States, and so positioning himself as this kind of mediator is really a surprising thing to do. And it raises the question of if the president is the mediator, then who is America’s representative?”
Michael Gerson said it was not a bad rhetorical device for Obama to position himself between two extremes.
But Gerson added: “In this desire for a kind of balance and evenhandedness, I think that he was unfair to our most important ally in the region, Israel, and dismissive of the achievements of another friend, Iraq.”
Whatever the merits or flaws of Obama’s comparisons, they amounted to “a sort of denial of American exceptionalism,” said Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s a very different perception of what Americans need to do and how to work with other people.”
Obama said his goal with the speech was to “forge a new beginning” with the Muslim world after the strained relations of the Bush years.
“He turned the page,” Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of