Obama has now given what has been claimed to be a defining speech on the Middle East.
Before he did, The Independent published a piece "President's fine words may not address the Middle East's real needs" by Robert Fisk on what the Obama speech ought be saying, but won't. It is a superb piece, veteran Fisk and from someone who knows the region probably better than most.
"What Mr Obama doesn't understand however – and, of course, Mrs Clinton has not the slightest idea – is that, in the new Arab world, there can be no more reliance on dictator-toadies, no more flattery. The CIA may have its cash funds to hand but I suspect few Arabs will want to touch them. The Egyptians will not tolerate the siege of Gaza. Nor, I think, will the Palestinians. Nor the Lebanese, for that matter; and nor the Syrians when they have got rid of the clansmen who rule them. The Europeans will work that out quicker than the Americans – we are, after all, rather closer to the Arab world – and we will not forever let our lives be guided by America's fawning indifference to Israeli theft of property.
It is, of course, going to be a huge shift of tectonic plates for Israelis – who should be congratulating their Arab neighbours, and the Palestinians for unifying their cause, and who should be showing friendship rather than fear. My own crystal ball long ago broke. But I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said in 1940, that "what General Weygand called the battle for France is over. The battle of Britain... is about to begin."
Well, the old Middle East is over. The new Middle East is about to begin. And we better wake up."
And now the speech has been given......the responses already in.
From James Zogby in The Guardian:
"Recognising the new realities in the Middle East is important. But recognising that Arabs see Palestinian rights as a central concern and have grown weary of what they feel is America's enabling of Israel's bad behaviour is important, too. The president got the new realities part right, but he missed a vital opportunity on Palestine."
And AlJazeera already has a good round up of reactions from a number of quarters, here, including Robert Fisk:
"It was the same old story... Israel cannot be deligitimised... No peace can be imposed on either party... It sounded like his pro-israeli speach to AIPAC.
It was a boring speech - very boring with lots of rhetoric about Arab revolutions which of course he did nothing to help.
Some of it was positively delusional! When he said we've broken the Taliban's momentum - it's delusional, it's just not true."
Before he did, The Independent published a piece "President's fine words may not address the Middle East's real needs" by Robert Fisk on what the Obama speech ought be saying, but won't. It is a superb piece, veteran Fisk and from someone who knows the region probably better than most.
"What Mr Obama doesn't understand however – and, of course, Mrs Clinton has not the slightest idea – is that, in the new Arab world, there can be no more reliance on dictator-toadies, no more flattery. The CIA may have its cash funds to hand but I suspect few Arabs will want to touch them. The Egyptians will not tolerate the siege of Gaza. Nor, I think, will the Palestinians. Nor the Lebanese, for that matter; and nor the Syrians when they have got rid of the clansmen who rule them. The Europeans will work that out quicker than the Americans – we are, after all, rather closer to the Arab world – and we will not forever let our lives be guided by America's fawning indifference to Israeli theft of property.
It is, of course, going to be a huge shift of tectonic plates for Israelis – who should be congratulating their Arab neighbours, and the Palestinians for unifying their cause, and who should be showing friendship rather than fear. My own crystal ball long ago broke. But I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said in 1940, that "what General Weygand called the battle for France is over. The battle of Britain... is about to begin."
Well, the old Middle East is over. The new Middle East is about to begin. And we better wake up."
And now the speech has been given......the responses already in.
From James Zogby in The Guardian:
"Recognising the new realities in the Middle East is important. But recognising that Arabs see Palestinian rights as a central concern and have grown weary of what they feel is America's enabling of Israel's bad behaviour is important, too. The president got the new realities part right, but he missed a vital opportunity on Palestine."
And AlJazeera already has a good round up of reactions from a number of quarters, here, including Robert Fisk:
"It was the same old story... Israel cannot be deligitimised... No peace can be imposed on either party... It sounded like his pro-israeli speach to AIPAC.
It was a boring speech - very boring with lots of rhetoric about Arab revolutions which of course he did nothing to help.
Some of it was positively delusional! When he said we've broken the Taliban's momentum - it's delusional, it's just not true."
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