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July 24, 2009
Barack Obama is no savior
The U.S. president's Cairo speech betrays an unfriendly agenda.
EVA COHEN
United States President Barack Obama's recent speech in Cairo has added fuel to the cause of the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel lobbies.
At the beginning of his address, Obama stated, "America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable." Although this is a strong statement, the justification Obama provided plays into the hands of Israel's opposition.
For those who did not hear the speech or read the transcript in full, the remainder of his reference to Israel's right of existence is as follows: "[This bond] is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied." Obama continued, "Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."
Fanatical Muslims deny the Holocaust. They see a cause and effect between the creation of the state of Israel and the Holocaust. If there was no Holocaust, then Jews have no claim to the land. More troubling still is the view that, even if the Holocaust did happen, it was exaggerated and staged for the ultimate seizure of Israel by the Jews.
Immediately following the graphic references to Jewish suffering, Obama drew a parallel between this suffering and the "dislocation" of the Palestinians, calling the entire situation a "stalemate." Drawing this parallel undermines the history of the region.
This parallel echoes the words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "The West claims that more than six million Jews were killed in World War Two and to compensate for that they established and support Israel." Ahmadinejad's opinion is well known, along with his constant threats to annihilate Israel and yet, Obama has used, in the words of the Daily Telegraph's Alex Spillus, "a gentler tone," toward the Iranian president than the previous administration.
Obama had the opportunity to stand up in Cairo and support the right of Israel to exist on its own legal merits, outside of "the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust" and of previous persecutions throughout history. Obama did not make any biblical references but, as a self-proclaimed practising Christian, and in an area of the world where religion is so very important, a reference to the Torah (the "First Testament") where G-d gives the land of Israel to Abraham would not have been out of place.
Obama did not show strong support for Israel's legitimacy. Even if Obama wanted to avoid the biblical and religious evidence, he still made no reference to any legal right of the Jews to the land of Israel. Nothing was said about the Balfour Declaration of 1917, that formal statement of policy by the British government, which stated, "His Majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Nor did Obama mention anything about the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 or United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for "the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: 1) Withdrawal of
Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict, and 2) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
It is important to pay attention to the wording of Resolution 242. First, it says Israel must withdraw from "territories," but does not state which ones. And second, it gives Israel the right to defensible borders. This includes protecting its citizens against any outside threats, which has legitimately come to include terrorism and the firing of rockets into civilian areas.
Following the speech in Cairo, Obama met with heads of the American Jewish community and said that Israel had to engage in "serious self reflection" if peace is to be achieved in the Middle East. The audience was, no doubt, busy reflecting on Obama's harsh tone and his seeming reluctance to face difficult questions in the fallout from his Cairo speech. The left-wing group J Street was invited to attend this meeting at the White House, while the National Council of Young Israel and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) were not invited. The ZOA is, and has been for decades, a strong Jewish representative in the United States and around the world and their exclusion in this meeting is likely not a coincidence.
Obama's speech and what followed has painted a troubling picture for American-Israeli relations over the next four years of this administration.
Eva Cohen is a Canadian freelance writer who is currently based in England.
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