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Reader comment on item: Assessing Obama's Cairo Speech
in response to reader comment: Obama, the Arab League, the KGB and Rodney King

Submitted by K. Ahmed (United States), Jun 5, 2009 at 09:55

Did you and I hear the same speech? There was no direct comparison to Jim Crow anymore than he directly compared the holocaust to the Palestinian suffering. He made an argument that one cannot continue to argue about the past if one is to hope for any reasonable future. If your position is correct, whatever that may be, then why should Israel have any relations with Germany. German anti-semitism has always been strong and remains quite virulent in Germany today.

For me, the subtext of this speech was that both the Arabs and the Israeli's need to stop acting like children and worry more about their people and less about the past. And that the US has an unbreakable bond and guarantee for the existence of the State of Israel. It appears to me that you desire we return to the unbalanced position of supporting Israel regardless. That position has not improved israeli security nor has it brought peace to the area. Unless you believe that the Middle East will one day consist of nothing but the state of Israel - I see no viable alternatives coming out of your comments.

As to the Muslim Umma - let me say as a proud American raised as a Muslim - the Muslim Umma doesn't truly exist and hasn't for a few centuries. Radical jihadists might wish to believe it did but it doesn't. The Muslim's that I know both here and abroad care more about feeding their families and having a nice car than they do about any Umma. The Catholic Church has more power to move people than any fictional Umma. But it does make a great boogey man for the West.

And may I ask with all that virulent talk what are a professor of?

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