Assessing Obama's Cairo speech

Submitted by Bob Kopstein (Canada), Jun 5, 2009 at 00:59

... The "give away", as Pipes' calls it, cost the U.S. and Israel nothing. So why be concerned? Pipes argues that Obama missed the opportunity to point out that the Palestinians could have had a state in 1948 if they had not attacked Israel instead. If Obama's purpose is to win credibility in the Islamic world, to have raised that history, would, surley have turned off the very people he was trying to influence.

To the Palestinians and the Arab nations surrounding Israel, the early history of Israel would have recalled the history of early Israel not according the version we like but according to the versions told by people like Uri Avnery, Benny Morris ( in his earlier works) and Ilan Pappe. Obama was dealing with the world as it is today. To bring that history to mind would have been counterproductive.

Bob Kopstein

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