Brave new words June 4: President Obama delivers a major speech in Egypt and tackles Middle East issues head on. Could it help improve U.S. relations in the Middle East? Rachel Maddow talks to former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.
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NYTs Editorial: The Cairo Speech
When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.
Mr. Obama spoke, unwaveringly, of the need to defend the country’s security and values. He left no doubt that he would do what must be done to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban, while making it clear that Americans have no desire to permanently occupy Afghanistan or Iraq.
He spoke, unequivocally, of the United States’ “unbreakable” commitment to Israel and of why Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. He was also clear that all of those listening — in the Muslim world and in Israel — must do more to defeat extremism and to respect the rights of their neighbors and their people.
Words are important. Mr. Obama was right when he urged leaders who privately speak of moderation and compromise to dare to say those words in public. But words are not enough. Mr. Obama, who, after all, has been in office for less than six months, has a lot to do to fulfill this vision. So do others.
Like many people, we were listening closely to how the president would address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He did not shy away from pressing Israel’s new government, insisting that the construction of settlements must stop, the existence of a Palestinian state cannot be denied, and “the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.”
In the same stern tone, he pressed the Palestinians to reject violence and said that Arab states must stop using the conflict “to distract” their people from other problems. They must recognize Israel and do more to help Palestinians build strong state institutions.
We couldn’t have agreed more when he said that the elements of a peace formula are known. We are now waiting to hear his strategy to move the process forward.
On Iran, Mr. Obama warned that its pursuit of nuclear weapons could set off a dangerous arms race in the Middle East. He also renewed his offer of serious negotiations. We are waiting to see what Mr. Obama will propose and how he plans to persuade Russia, China and the Europeans to support a credible mix of punishments and enticements to try to change Tehran’s behavior.
Mr. Obama challenged the conspiracy-minded who questioned, and those who justified, the Sept. 11 attacks. He said the war in Afghanistan was one of necessity and insisted that despite the high cost, in lives and treasure, America’s commitment will not weaken.
At the same time, Mr. Obama said the war in Iraq was a war of “choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world.” Mr. Obama, who said Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein, missed a chance to urge Iraq’s neighbors to do all they can to help hold the country together as American troops withdraw.
The audience was undoubtedly waiting to hear how Mr. Obama handled the issue of democracy — and its depressing scarcity in the Islamic world. He avoided President Bush’s hectoring tone and did not confront his host, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. But we suspect everyone in the hall knew whom he was talking about (they applauded at key moments) when he said that governments must maintain power “through consent, not coercion” and that “elections alone do not make true democracy.” We hope he made those points directly when he met Mr. Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
Before Thursday’s speech, and after, Mr. Obama’s critics complained that he has spent too much time apologizing and accused him of weakening the country. That is a gross misreading of what he has been saying — and of what needs to be said. After eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. And it takes a strong president to press himself and the world to do better.
hilzoy had a series of superb posts about Obama's speech, starting with The Cairo Speech,
And the thing is: when you don't tell the truth, when you allow yourself to assume a predictable, scripted role in a charade, there is no earthly reason for anyone to listen to a word you say. You act like a caricature or an automaton, not like a human being addressing other human beings; and thus there is no reason for anyone to attend to you the way we normally attend to one another.
That's what made Obama's speech so powerful. He broke out of the script. He didn't say what he might have been expected to say.
...
The script is comfortable for some people on both sides. Not all, of course; most notably, not the people on both sides who have been killed, or who live in fear or poverty. But for others, it provides a convenient way to act tough while avoiding the really hard issues. Breaking through it and speaking like a human being who says what everyone knows to be true is not comfortable. But it is the right thing to do, and I respect Obama immensely for doing it.
followed by The Cairo Speech: 2
The normal criticism of Palestinian violence is moral. That is as it should be, and Obama does not slight that: "That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered." But that criticism leaves open the possibility of framing the debate over Palestinian violence as one of principle versus effectiveness. As long as it is framed that way, one can understand (though not agree with) Palestinians who say: you'd think differently if you didn't have a state; if it was your land that was constantly being seized, and your pregnant wife who had to wait for hours at a checkpoint to see a doctor. You'd put aside your principles and do what works.
That's why it's immensely important to say, clearly, that violence is not just wrong, but ineffective. This has always seemed clear to me: of all the ways to try to achieve Palestinian statehood, why on earth would you pick violence, where the difference between Israeli and Palestinian strength is greatest? And why would you not begin to wonder, after decades of violence with nothing to show for it besides blood and bitterness, whether some other approach might be better?
One reason is that violence is both easy and gratifying, especially to people who have been humiliated and feel that they need a way to strike back. That's why it's also very important that Obama said this:
"It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus."
People who shoot rockets at sleeping children and blow up old women on busses are heroes in parts of the Arab world. Obama is directly challenging their courage. He is calling them out, and asking: what's so heroic about that? How does that show how powerful you are?
He's casting violence as a form of weakness. Again, that is both true and very powerful. And it badly needed saying.
And ending with "Natural Growth"
One Congressman seems to be confused about what freezing "natural growth" in West Bank settlements would mean:
"Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said focusing on settlement activity "detracts" from top U.S. goals in the region. However, he added: "I do not support a settlement freeze that calls on Israeli families not to grow, get married, or forces them to throw away their grandparents. Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane.""
Asking Israelis not to have kids, or to throw away their grandparents, would be inhumane. That's probably one reason why no one has proposed any such thing. A settlement freeze would just prevent Israel from building any new houses in West Bank settlements. If anyone could explain to me why a ban on construction would require not getting married, or not having children, or putting your grandparents on whatever the Israeli analog of ice floes is, I'd be fascinated to hear about it. (I'd be even more fascinated to learn how such a ban could be, as one Israeli cabinet member put it, "akin to Pharaoh's demand that all firstborn sons be thrown into the Nile River." Who knew?)
A construction ban might, of course, mean that a settler's house could get crowded as his or her family grew. In that case, that settler might have to, well, buy another house. And if no new houses were going up in settlements, houses there might get more expensive. Settlers could then choose between paying the extra money and moving back to Israel. Horrors!
Gershom Gorenberg has an article in the Prospect about shopping for houses in the West Bank. You might wonder: if Israelis need to build new houses on the West Bank so as not to throw away their grandparents or toss their firstborns into the Nile, how is it that Gorenberg, who does not live on the West Bank, can find them for sale? It's a good question. Gorenberg's answer:
"Settlements were established as part of a deliberate and controversial gambit, an attempt to lock Israel into keeping the occupied territories. A settlement freeze or evacuation has always been a possibility. "What will we say to a family living with one child, which now has four or five children? That the children will move to Petah Tikva?" asked Hershkovitz, referring to one of Tel Aviv's large satellite cities. Well, yes. The whole family, or any grown children, could move inside Israel.
But focusing the argument for settlements around expanding families is itself a very deliberate distraction. Construction in settlements is not aimed only at accommodating children of settlers. It's aimed at drawing more Israelis across the Green Line boundary between Israel and the West Bank. When I spoke to the Amana office, the sales rep didn't ask me whether I'd grown up in a settlement or where I currently live. She offered me real-estate deals. Were I a right-winger, were I someone who preferred not to think about the disastrous implications of permanent Israeli rule of the West Bank, were I not me, her offers would have been very tempting. Instead of the apartment in which I've raised three kids in Jerusalem, I could get a house, a yard, and considerable change.
Settlement homes aren't quite the giveaways they were a few years ago. But they are still cheap, subsidized housing that continues to draw Israelis to move to the West Bank. In 2007, the last year for which there are official figures, the settlement population (not including annexed East Jerusalem) grew by 14,500 people. Of that growth, 37 percent was due to veteran Israelis or new immigrants moving to occupied territory. The "natural growth" argument is intended to cover up the continued, state-backed effort to encourage this migration. (...)
Netanyahu and his partners don't want any of this to stop. They want settlements to keep growing, in order to block an Israeli withdrawal and a two-state solution. Obama wants a freeze as the first step toward a solution. The natural-growth argument is worse than a distraction; it's a scam. Let the buyer beware."
The settlements need to be dismantled, not expanded. And letting buyers from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv find houses in settlements that are cheaper than those they could buy in Israel proper is not "natural growth".
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