The truth behind Obama's speech in Cairo | News & Politics | News & Comment

LAST UPDATED 8:10 AM, JUNE 5, 2009

31-year old Yemeni who had been in a wire cage since February, 2002 (more than seven years) without charges and declared by his US military jailers "an apparent suicide".

Salih, on hunger strike, was down to 85lb. Torture is certainly the label any morally balanced person would attach to his travails and it's quite reasonable to speculate that his end came amid yet another attempt to forcibly feed him.

Obama's audience would have been well aware too that even if – a big 'if' – Guantanamo does get shut down, its inmates will endure similar horrors in Bagram, and that Obama favours imprisonment, permanent if necessary, of enemy combatants, without charges or trial.

Obama's talk of the evils of al-Qaeda’s "terror" will have fallen ironically on the ears of Palestinians in Gaza earlier this year, or of Afghans still seething at the loss

of civilians in US bombing raids. The noble pledges about economic assistance to the Muslim world sound hollow against the realities of how US aid really gets administered, starting with the huge sums filched by the 'non-profit' aid agencies.

Least credible to any Muslim would have been the ludicrous "balanced" passages about Israel and Palestine and the measured calls to Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza to disdain violence and swap formal recognition of Israel for... for what? Pledges by the Netanyahu government to build more settlements?

The Knesset wants to imprison people who deny that Israel is a Jewish state"Among some Muslims," Obama declared, "there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld... Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.”

This came at the end of a week in which the Israeli Knesset voted by a large majority (47 to 34) for a law that threatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny that Israel is a Jewish state.

The private member's bill, proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev of the 'Jewish Home' party, stipulates one year in prison to anyone who publishes "a call that negates the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State".

As the veteran Zionist, former Knesset member and peace activist Yuri Avnery writes: "One can foresee the next steps. A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognise Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State."

"They want it to be a state of all its citizens – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. And, in addition, there are also Jews who do not want Israel to be defined as a Jewish State in which non-Jews have the status, at best, of tolerated outsiders."

Obama told the audience that freedom of religion was central of the ability of people to live together

The bill now goes to the Legal Committee of the Knesset. Avnery says flatly within a few weeks or months, it will be the law of the land.

The bill, Avnery notes, does not single out Arabs explicitly – even if this is its clear intention, and all those who voted for it understood this. It also prohibits Jews from advocating a change in the state's definition, or the creation of a bi-national state in all of historic Palestine or spreading any other such unconventional ideas.

Avnery concludes: "One can only imagine what would happen in the US if a senator proposed a law to imprison anyone who suggests an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America."

There are fine words. There are facts on the ground, and as so often they too often strayed far from each other in Obama's big speech. One 1,000lb bomb trumps 10,000 words on rhetoric about peace.

For his next speech on this theme let me offer a very inspiring illustration of inter-confessional tolerance at work in a great cause.

Around 930 AD the dowager Queen Toda of Navarre, a Christian, appealed to the caliphate in Cordoba, beseeching 'Abd al-Rahman III to help her slim down her son Sancho I, who had been abandoned by his subjects in Navarre because he was too fat to ride a horse and thus unable to display himself properly as a kingly warrior. The caliph sent word he had this terrific Jewish doctor and promptly dispatched to Navarre his top court medic, a Jew called Hasday b Shaprut.

Apparently the Shaprut Diet did the trick. A year later Sancho was back on the throne. E pluribus unum, in the form of one thinned down Sancho.

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Brave effort by BO, given the gloating glee with which the RWDBs will parse every phrase and syllable for proof that he is a Muslin Manchurian candidate. Which would still be preferable to the mad Manichaeism of Shrub & Darth Cheney. Lotsa luck lad, you're gonna need it, given your unlovely compatriots. To paraphrase the Iron Duke, "I don't know what effect they'll have on the enemy but, by God, they terrify me..."

Posted by allan kessing at 11:33am on June 5, 2009

Only when religion can be divorced from governments will people see real peace. Islam will always be at loggerheads with other religions because Islamic governments churn out citizen after citizen of primed fanatics. Look at Saudi Arabia, a nation that is allowed to operate religious aparthied by refusing entry to Medina and Mecca to Jews and christians.

Posted by Andrew Longworth at 3:13pm on June 5, 2009

What is responsible for the hatred and venom of Alexander Cockburn and The First Post against this president. Everything you publish about President Barack Obama beginning with the campaign and since his inauguration has been negative.You were not this hard on the previous president in the eight years he was in office.His speech in Cairo ,an attempt to bridge the cultural divide and help in bringing peace to the region,instead became an exercise of Alexander calling him naive and calling him a liar and bringing up everything the United States has ever done. Like everything else that you and this columnist print about this president (who is not even 6 months old on the job) it is just designed to portray him in the worst possible light . Heaven help the world if Alexander Cockburn and his ilk on the right have to power to rule the world.

Posted by angel at 10:41pm on June 5, 2009

I want to correct to Mr.Andrew longworth, i think you are wrong, because islam haven't been at loggerheads with christians and jews who live in Islamic and Arab countries!! in Lebanon for example christians form almost 45% of population in Lebanon and they are living their lives very freely now a days. In Egypt also there are 7 Millions christian and most of them are copts, and also they are living freely and interact with muslims every day. And yes there are jews in arab countries, in Yemen, in Egypt and in Kuwait also there was jews in the past but now they all have emigrated to Israel, after Israel send invitation to all jews to emigrate to them and offer them Israelian Nationalities! and guess what ? Israel have named a street in it's land by the name of two kuwaiti jewish brothers, they were singers in Kuwait but have emigrated in the 1950's to Israel, Their name were: "Saleh & Mahmud ALkwaiti". So you point isn't right ! I think you can't judge islamic world without studying the situation or by living in the Area. But yes you are right Saudia arabia don't allow christian and jews to enter Madina & Mecca, First, that's because of religious reasons, and I guess there are alot of places wre muslims aren't aren't welcome to them, and you can name them ! and second, I guess that's because these two cities "Madina & Mecca" are very very sensitive places to muslims, and maybe because alot of muslims have already suffered in losing the possibility to attend one of the three main mosques in world, which is AL-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Thanks to Israel!! so I guess because of this wound and the fact we are not capable to reach AL-Aqsa safely, so we won't like to risk the other two mosques which are located in Madina & Mecca. Thanks !

Posted by Zeyad Saleh at 3:38am on June 6, 2009

"Angel" (10.41) is completely right. The anti-Obama tirade continues. Or is it simply anti-Democrat ? Move on, Cockburn. Nobody is listening to you.

Posted by martin gowar at 10:39am on June 8, 2009

Thank you Angel for pointing that out. Just today i was watching Al Jazeera where the Taliban has fined every Sikh living there 1000 rupees per person for refusing to convert. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Pakistan-Taliban-Extort-Money-From-Refugees/Video/200906215299134 I live in the UK where tensions between christians and muslims run very high,infact, we now have a far right racist party that has made massive inroads into the political system based on their anti muslim stance., and if you look at the European election results, you will see people voted in power because of religious tensions. I am rather troubled by your defence on why Saudi practices religious aparthied. You must remember that Christianity is 600 years older than Islam and that Islam is an offshoot of christianity. Can you imagine if we christians said that no muslims were allowed in Rome, i can assure you there would be churches set alight throught the Islamic world,so why is that your religion is alowed to do that. For those that dont know, Adam,the very first man in the bible is buried in Mecca, and Eve in Jeddah. You mention Al Asqa mosque,which takes me back to my original point, only when religion is divorced from politics will we see peace. So you justify the banning of crhstians from Mecca and Medina because the Jews have limited the access to Al Asqa to muslims.Two wrongs dont make a right. I once asked a Saudi Iman why christians were barred from Mecca,and without even stopping to think about it,he replied,"Ours is the pure and untainted relgion". So much for tolerance and understanding.

Posted by Andrew Longworth at 12:40pm on June 9, 2009

First of all Barack Obama is not Islamic. That is a myth perpetrated by the weak minds of the religious. Perhaps you can look over your own posts and find the connecting thread of your discourse. Religion. It does nothing but stunt the mind and starve the rational world with useless, uncritical information and cheat ourselves of self reliance and self responsibility. Stop cowering behind your gods and join humanity on it's own terms. Step out of your blissful ignorance and into the warm light of education. Only then will we, as a united rational people, begin to watch as our differences evaporate and it becomes clear that we all, for however short a time, inhabit together this small rock hurdling through space.

Posted by Billy Hutton at 5:56pm on September 21, 2009