Excellent Speech

Submitted by John Joyce (United States), Jun 5, 2009 at 18:34

I read the transcript of a speech entitled "Remarks...on a New Beginning." It seemingly sought to locate some common principled ground and to perhaps cut through much propaganda in the US (often authored by the Israel Lobby) that inappropriately disrespects/maligns Muslims. From that perspective, the speech was very effective in my opinion.

I agree with President Obama's premise: The Muslims, including the Iranians and Palestinians, are not crazy or bloodthirsty; they just have an entirely different reading of certain political/cultural/historical issues.

The settler movement in Israel is very disturbing to me. It seems that divorced-from-reality, pathetic zealots are attracted to a periphereal place where they seek to gain land from the people who reside there in the name of God but really on the basis of Israel's US financed military that stands behind them. It is colonialism akin to the "manifest destiny" of the American west, albeit seemingly not for the material wealth of the place, but rather its biblical lore; it is nonetheless a corrupt and discredited philosophy.

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