An analyst on NPR this morning thought it was a mistake to make this a 'Muslim' speech and not an 'Arab' or 'Middle East' speech. I found that an interesting distinction. Do you think that's right?

He should have stopped right after his affirmation of the US support of Israel, right before stating the US support of a Palestinian State, and noted the total absence of any applause or approval or ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the crowd to his words. Something like:

"Now you sit there silent, holding your applause, expedient of my next words before you express your aggreement. This is the fundemental problem America has with the Arabic and Islamic world. You insist on our support of a state for Palestinians, but refuse to even acknowledge the right of Jews to their own state. Your polite silence is incitement, only by openly voicing acceptance of Israel can you end violence in the Middle East."

Most important and telling fact about the speech: the word "terror" or "terrorism" is not uttered once. Whereas Bush would say it every 2nd word, Obama obviously intentionally didn't include it. That's change I can believe in

Deep thought

Only two groups are deeply opposed to his visit and speech: Al Qaeda and the Republican party.

Lance, that's about the stupidest thing I've ever read. I'm sure when he speaks to the Knesset, you'll ask him to do the reverse when acknowledging the need for a Palestinian state. Retarded.

Jackjumper- For what it's worth, I disagree with the NPR analyst. The most quoted Holocaust denier in the region these days is Persian, not Arab. Also, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not strictly in the Middle East. Al Qaeda uses a religious connection with the Palestineans and Iraqis as a pretext for global religious extremism.

Just to repeat my earlier comments on UTF-8 versus Latin-1 character set problems (in the last two block quotes, in this case), the shell command

iconv -f UTF-8 -t LATIN1 --unicode-subst="&#%u;" the old filename > the new filename

In OS X, one can use Automator to make a drag & drop version of the command.

Obama hasn't been everything I would have liked. But this speech reminds me that, in some ways, he's a heck of a lot more than I could have hoped for.

Although I agree with most of Obama's speech, I have a problem with his blanket statement that "Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed" and that "violence is a dead end." That's not always true, and for him to pretend it is is dishonest and unfair. There are cases where people who are being oppressed need to use violence. The Algerians wouldn't have won their independence from the French by completely nonviolent means. Before the Algerian War of Independence, they had repeatedly tried to hold free and fair elections, but the French would simply rig the elections. And would Gandhi's nonviolent tactics have worked if India had been controlled by Stalin's Soviet Union rather than the British? Furthermore, there was certainly a good deal of "terrorist" violence involved in the founding of Israel itself (by the Irgun and Lehi and others).

In addition, it's rather misleading for Obama to use the civil rights struggle of African-Americans as a model for the rest of the world. Although violence against civil rights workers often occured (for example by the KKK), the civil rights movement took place in a society where those involved had recourse to the laws and power of the federal government, and could work within the system. This is quite different from a situation where one group is under military occupation by another (the Palestinians in the occupied territories, for example).

While I understand the basic message Obama is trying to convey to the Muslim world, I feel it is wrong to do so by making historically simplistic and questionable statements. Doing this only runs the risk of weakening his message in the end.

President Obama said, "Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust."

It is a great pity that he limited the anti-Semitism to Europe. It was certainly a worldwide phenomenon. The US was also profoundly anti-Semitic at the time. The US didn't allow any Jews to immigrate during WWII.

I would argue that this is an example of a missed opportunity. Had the President aknowledged US and worldwide anti-Semitism, he could have better made the argument that changing beliefs and prejudices is something that is both possible and laudable. Instead he comes across as a lecturer.

Cheers,

Alan Tomlinson

I don't think being "one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known" and being "the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire" are mutually exclusive. In fact, it seems to me that the great empires down through history have often been a source of progress, at least of sorts. Being a source of progress doesn't excuse the immoral actions of a self-interested empire. Good thing that the US doesn't engage in immoral acts. Lord knows that if we had an empire that was more or less constantly at war even to the point that it invaded nations that posed no threat what so ever, that would be a bad thing.

"I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody."

Yeah! The people that were killed on 9-11 were fundamentally unlike the many, many thousands of innocent men, women and children we bombed in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we do it, it's different...'cause we're good!

"...even now (Al Qaeda) their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with."

I think Obama is coming close to being as much an abject misleader here as was Bush. He makes it sound like Al Qaeda just wants to kill, kill, kill...which is BS of the highest order. In addition to that, I submit that "Al Qaeda" as most people envision it here in the US is a basically a myth. I'd suggest that people lay their hands on a copy of the Adam Curtis BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares. A quick Google search turns up links to video and the DVD ISO can be downloaded from several places on the net. Al Qaeda as it has been sold to us is our version of Goldstein from Orwell's 1984.

Anyway, I disagree with the O-man. These are indeed facts to be debated. Something that took me a long time to accept is that the truth behind what happened on 9-11 has not been told. I wanted to believe the official explanations, but the closer you look, the less they hold up.

He's still perpetuating the 9/11 myth. There's no way those buildings fell without the help of explosives. No way.

It would have been good if President Obama had acknowledged that every single aspect of the entirety of US policy towards the Middle East since the Roosevelt administration has been completely driven by the USA's need for oil. Ensuring access to, and beyond that, ensuring the ability to control and profit from, Middle Eastern oil is the one and only reason the USA has any interest whatsoever in the region.

And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear

I disagree with that statement. Since when does the president of a secular republic have the responsibility to fight negative sterotypes about any religion?

That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't.

Since when (or better yet, how) can a nation come into partnership with a religion? He would be roundly mocked if he were to say that about Judaism or Christianity and should be mocked here.

Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism -- it is an important part of promoting peace

Sorry, but Islam is THE problem. Saudi madrassas export hate and extremism (and money to back up the first two) wherever they go, from Pakistan to Bosnia. Radical Shia imams issue fatwas and put to death gay couples in Iran, all in the name of their religion.

What Obama should have said is the the Muslims who want peace and tolerance should start taking command from the Muslims who don't.

"He's still perpetuating the 9/11 myth. There's no way those buildings fell without the help of explosives. No way."

Two jet liners, packed with flammable fuel, slammed into the WTC, igniting a massive inferno that burned for hours. It all happened on nation-wide tv. It takes a very interesting mind to watch that and then say, "Well, if you think *that* is the cause..."

Two other quibbles with Obama's speech. Buchenwald was a concentration camp, not an extermination camp. It was not created specifically for Jews. Although many Jews were among the prisoners, and the death rate was enormous, it was not one of the death camps which was created to implement the Holocaust. And as far as I know, Buchenwald didn't have gas chambers.

Also, while it's certainly true that Jews have suffered many persecutions and expulsions over the centuries, it's inaccurate to suggest, as Obama does (to my ears at least) that this was the case everywhere all the time. This is what the great Jewish historian Salo Baron referred to as the "lachrymose" conception of Jewish history, the idea that the Jewish experience can be reduced to a series of persecutions. Even in Europe during the Middle Ages, most Jews were not victims of pogroms, and they often prospered economically and culturally to a remarkable extent.

good speech.

but ouch "For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights."

Bad example. It was definitely violence that ended the lash of the whip - >600k military deaths.

"good speech.

but ouch "For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights."

Bad example. It was definitely violence that ended the lash of the whip - >600k military deaths."

Yes. Let's ignore the 100 years of Reconstruction and Jim Crow that followed and give the Civil War full credit for ending black suffering in the US.

It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."

Word. If only the neocons ralized that.

Secular Animist: All we want is oil from the Middle East? Does that mean Israel is not in the
Middle East? Supporting Israel got us an oil embargo in 1973.
Then why do we support Israel? They ain't got any.

Alan Tomlinson: You can't read the sentence you quoted. He said "Around the world", that means worldwide.

Alan,

"The US didn't allow any Jews to immigrate during WWII."

This is simply not true. Furthermore, although the U.S. did have immigration quotas during this time period, America accepted about 240,000 Jewish refugees from 1933 to 1945, more than any other single country.

Johndri, as a civil engineer, I say unequivocally that no explosives were needed. Look at the north tower. The heat of the fire caused the support columns on the 84th floor (all on the exterior or the center of the building, instead of latticed throughout as is usually the case) to buckle outwards. This dropped the upper 25 stories on the 83rd floor, which had no chance of surviving such a hammer blow. It collapsed, dropping 28 stories on the 82nd floor, which collapsed, and on and on. If you can stand to watch the videos, you can see this happening. the building simply hammered itself to the ground. No need for explosives. If explosives had been used, they would have had to be in the foundation. This would have toppled the building sideways, like a falling tree. That didn't happen, as the video shows.

Sorry, the conspiracies are easy to prove wrong by anyone with a little knowledge of engineering and of the way the buildings were built.

Bad example. It was definitely violence that ended the lash of the whip - >600k military deaths.

Ah, so blacks had "full and equal rights" by 1865?

Good to know.

>the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

The focus on Israel as a Jewish state following the Holocaust rather than the rebuilding of an existing homeland is a rather poor choice. If Israel was founded solely to be a Jewish state it could be anywhere. But it was not, Israel is the rebuilding of the Jewish homeland, it needs to be in the Middle East, in Eretz Yisrael.

Not stating that Israel is the historic homeland of the the Jewish people is a major failing in this speech and allows rejectionism to flourish.

Mark F,

"Not stating that Israel is the historic homeland of the the Jewish people is a major failing in this speech and allows rejectionism to flourish."

It would have been very hypocritical for Obama to make that argument. After all, isn't northern Georgia the "historic homeland" of the Cherokee?

"the conspiracies are easy to prove wrong by anyone with a little knowledge"

That last word is the important one: *knowledge*. All conspiracy theories seem to be defined as a load of ignorance parading as serious ideas. It is true with the moon landing hoaxers, the creationists, and also the 9/11 truthers.

Oh, and off topic but: give us an 'edit' button, please. That last post of mine completely ignored my placement of the italics tag.

Man, I bet some of the folks commenting here really like to hear themselves talk.......

catclub wrote: "All we want is oil from the Middle East? ... Then why do we support Israel? They ain't got any."

Yeah, given that every US President from Roosevelt on has publicly affirmed that Middle Eastern oil is a "strategic resource" for the USA and that we will use any means necessary including military force to ensure our access to and control of it, why in the world would the USA want an ally in the region that has no oil and thus no leverage over our oil supply, that is utterly dependent on US military support for its very existence, and that the US has systematically built up into the preeminent, overwhelming, virtually unchallengeable military superpower (nuclear armed, no less) in the region?

It's hard to figure -- NOT.

As far as the US government is concerned, the state of Israel is like a giant, nuclear-armed aircraft carrier plunked down in the middle of the world's last, best, biggest, richest oil supply.

Look, the ONLY reason that any of the "great powers" of the world have the slightest interest in the Middle East is the region's vast, rich reserves of high-quality, cheaply extractable oil.

It's all about the oil. If there were no oil in the region, there would be no intervention from the great powers, and the people of the region would probably be living in relative peace. And if there were territorial conflicts between different ethnic and religious groups -- for example the Israelis and the Palestinians -- they would be of little interest to the rest of the world.

These weren't rebukes or condemnations, they were a president issuing a challenge, and forging a new basis for an international relationship. It was also a reminder that Obama, no matter where he is, doesn't talk down to his audiences, or shy away from nuance or complex ideas.

His speeches are amazingly good.

The problem is to make anything good happen.

Who in the Middle East actually places any weight on the wording of the UN resolutions regarding Israel? Resolution 242 requires the warring nations to negotiate treaties which require those nations that prepared to attack Israel in 1967 to recognize Israel. Jordan did that, and in consequence ceded the West Bank to Israel in exchange for a lot of mutual Israel/Jordan development projects, which have a substantial record of accomplishment. Yet a large portion of the world wants to ignore the treaty and eject Israel from the West Bank. Pressure is put on Israel to retreat to the 1967 borders, but there were repeated attacks on Israel when it was confined to those borders, and local maps (drawn in the Palestinian-dominated territories and in Saudi Arabia) do not even include those borders, explicitly denying the right of Israel to exist. I am happy that Obama is a strong supporter of the right of Palestinians to their own country, but they rejected the idea in 1948 and ever since; where they govern themselves in Gaza, they have made a desert and an abbatoir.

These are just a few of the difficulties. Obama has recognized the right of Iran to have peaceful atomic power, and he has said that "all options are on the table" (he repeated it again last week) to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It doesn't look as though the Iranian government cares a hoot what Obama says and thinks, and is working as fast as it can to obtain those weapons. Obama will have to decide between some unpleasant courses of action.

Obama's words and delivery are different from Bush's. Obama emphasizes the possibilities whereas Bush emphasized responsibilities and the superiority of democracy. But the denotative points are the same, and the obstacles and choices are the same.

For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.

Gotta disagree with that statement. There are no rules making it harder for a Muslim to give money to any Muslim charity.

What I think he's confused with is that many Islamic charities have been investigated for funneling money to terrorist groups.

That's a whole different ball of wax.

Muslim Americans are free to give money to any charity they want, just like any other American.

Muslim charities are not allowed to send that money to terrorist groups, just like any other charities is forbidden to do so.

The problem is to make anything good happen.

As you should know, being an expert in bad faith.

Shame on you, Marler.

Shade Tale: Yes. Let's ignore the 100 years of Reconstruction and Jim Crow that followed and give the Civil War full credit for ending black suffering in the US.

The Civil War does not deserve "full credit" for ending black suffering, and nobody wrote that it does. The Civil War deserves much credit for ending slavery. With the end of slavery came the end of: (1) prohibition of free movement of African-Americans; (2) prohibition of teaching African-Americans; (3) willy-nilly breakup of African-American families by the slave trade.

"It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."

This, above all else, is why I voted for Obama.

Going to the Middle East and giving a speech like this, a first step in a new direction, took a hell of a lot more intelligence, leadership, and guts than sending a quarter million American teenagers into Iraq with guns blazing. And it will do a hell of a lot more good in the long run.

[T]here are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.

Is that like when you campaign promising unprecedented transparency and then turn around and use the state secrets privilege in an unprecedented way to suppress torture victims rights and cover up the war crimes of your predecessor because you find it politically convenient? Democracy! Feel it!

Fuck all of you nit-pickers. Obama is a mensch. This was a good, important speech. We will be able to look back and see this as a turning point.

chrenson, I've only read the transcript because after some of the glowing comments on other (less nitpicky) sites, I thought I'd be all verklempt if I watched the video.

Extraordinary president.

It is the best speech by an American President about the Middle East. That's not a very high standard though.

The US on a per capita basis allowed damn few Jews to immigrate from 1939-1945, which was the key time period.

Thanks for the love Travis.

Cheers,

Alan Tomlinson

"The Civil War does not deserve "full credit" for ending black suffering, and nobody wrote that it does. The Civil War deserves much credit for ending slavery. With the end of slavery came the end of: (1) prohibition of free movement of African-Americans; (2) prohibition of teaching African-Americans; (3) willy-nilly breakup of African-American families by the slave trade."

If you really believe that the Civil War ended all those things, then you know nothing about the 100 years of Jim Crow law that followed. Just to name one thing, blacks were frequently charged with bogus crimes and put into hard-labor chain gangs upon conviction. It was legal slavery all over again.

So no, the Civil War does not deserve much credit for those things.

Marler wrote: With the end of slavery came the end of (1) prohibition of free movement of African-Americans; (2) prohibition of teaching African-Americans

Hogwash.

"Driving While Black" can still get some people pulled over, jackass.

Shade Tail beat me to it by two minutes. Drat you, Shade Tail! [shakes fist]

Shade Tail,

I see your point, but come on. Get real. No one can reasonably deny that there was a major change, and a positive change, in the status of African-Americans because of the Civil War.

"blacks were frequently charged with bogus crimes and put into hard-labor chain gangs upon conviction."

Although that did go on, and it was inexcusable, there's still a big difference between that and the vast majority of Southern blacks being someone's property from birth to death, and whites being able to legally separate black families. There is no way the mass migration of blacks to the North in the early 20th century could have taken place before 1865.

If you can't see the difference I really don't know what to say to you.

"Not stating that Israel is the historic homeland of the the Jewish people is a major failing in this speech and allows rejectionism to flourish." . . . It would have been very hypocritical for Obama to make that argument. After all, isn't northern Georgia the "historic homeland" of the Cherokee?

. . . And England is the "historic homeland" of the Welsh, Bavaria is the "historic homeland" of the Celts, Tuscany is the "historic homeland" of the Etruscans, Iraq is the "historic homeland" of the Sumerians, and so on . . . just how silly to you want to get with this visiting the sins of the fathers unto the utmost generation preachiness?

No one can reasonably deny that there was a major change, and a positive change, in the status of African-Americans because of the Civil War.

Who's denying that? At the same time, no one can reasonably deny that the Civil War and the end of slavery made everything hunky-dory for African Americans, especially in the South. As Shade Tail and I pointed out with near simultaniety, the Civil War didn't end restrictions for many African Americans to travel or to get an education.

there's still a big difference between that and the vast majority of Southern blacks being someone's property from birth to death, and whites being able to legally separate black families.

Whites were able to lynch African Americans with legal impugnity throughout the south and elsewhere well into the 20th Century, on any pretext or for no reason at all. That's arguably worse than slavery -- as someone else's property, one would have at least some legal deterrent from injury by random bigots (though it'd be the owner that was owed restitution), but as a free man, none at all.

The Civil War ended slavery, but to dismiss the hundred years of Jim Crow is to commit a grave injustice to the historical record.

Although that did go on, and it was inexcusable, There's still a big difference between that and the vast majority of Southern blacks being someone's property from birth to death, and whites being able to legally separate black families. There is no way the mass migration of blacks to the North in the early 20th century could have taken place before 1865 . . . If you can't see the difference I really don't know what to say to you.

Eh. Eeyores, that's all. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.

Stevie Wonder said it best "If you want to hear my view, you haven't done nothing!!"

But, that was a song lyric, chosen for emotional punch. It didn't need to stand up to empirical analysis.

Gregory,

"The Civil War ended slavery, but to dismiss the hundred years of Jim Crow is to commit a grave injustice to the historical record."

I don't think anyone is dismissing Jim Crow or lynching. It was Shade Tail and you who seemed to be minimizing the importance of the end of slavery, and that's what me and others here have taken issue with. That's all. It may not have even come close to making everything "hunky-dory" for African-Americans, but it was still very important.

It was Shade Tail and you who seemed to be minimizing the importance of the end of slavery

If it seeemed so, I suggest you reread the thread. To the contrary, Shade Tail and myself were countering MatthewRMarler's bogus assertion that "With the end of slavery came the end of: (1) prohibition of free movement of African-Americans; (2) prohibition of teaching African-Americans."

The Civil War ended -- Marler's word -- those things only if you pretend the subsequent hundred years of Jim Crow never existed.

What Gregory said. All of it.

The truth is that it was the Civil Rights Act, signed by LBJ, that really put a stop to this kind of stuff. Even that has taken a while to turn things around and the work isn't finished yet, but it has done much more much faster than the Civil War ever did.

So, to remind you guys of the actual point here: Obama is correct. It wasn't violence that ended, among other things, the lash of the whip. It was, ultimately, peaceful protest and the shift of public opinion.

MatthewRMarler wrote: "... where they govern themselves in Gaza, they have made a desert and an abbatoir."

Right. The brutal Israeli military occupation under which the Palestinians attempt to "govern themselves" has absolutely nothing to do with it.

MatthewRMarler wrote: "Obama has ... recognized the right of Iran to have peaceful atomic power, and he has said that 'all options are on the table' (he repeated it again last week) to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons."

Well, first of all it is obviously as important to Obama as it has been to his predecessors that Israel remain the one and only nuclear-armed military superpower in the region.

Secondly, the situation with Iran's nuclear program highlights the futility and absurdity of promoting the proliferation of so-called "peaceful atomic power" while claiming to oppose proliferation of nuclear weapons, since there is no fundamental difference between the technologies involved, and any nation that develops the technology to build nuclear power plants cannot, as a practical matter, be prevented from using that same technology to create nuclear weapons if they wish to do so.

And like the Bush administration, the Obama administration continues to support the proliferation of nuclear power technology -- including to other nations in the Middle East who have obvious motivations for developing their own nuclear weapons as soon as they are able to do so.

Geez, people. How can we hope for peace in the Middle East if the North and South are still debating who freed the slaves?