During the Cold War an important article appeared in Foreign Affairs Quarterly, written by “X.” (It was later revealed, that “X” was George Kennan, noted Kremlinologist). Now, in a like manner, a long standing expert on the Middle East has annotated President Obama’s recent news conference on that region. His comments are in red.
(Note to my readers: Just so there will be no confusion or doubt, this was NOT written by me).
SC
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
____________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 7,
2009
REMARKS OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
AT STUDENT ROUNDTABLE
Tophane Cultural Center
Istanbul, Turkey
12:18 P.M. (Local)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ...
If we want to say to Iran, don't develop nuclear weapons because if you develop them then everybody in the region is going to want them and you'll have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and that will be dangerous for everybody -- if we want to say that to Iranians, it helps if we are also saying, "and we will reduce our own," so that we have more moral authority in those claims. [Mr. President: the arms race between ME counties will take place after Israel will be wiped off the map as proof of Iranian Islamic nuclear hegemony]
....I agree that al Qaeda is an enormous threat not just to the United States but to the world. I have no sympathy and I have no patience for people who would go around blowing up innocent people for a political cause.
I don't believe in that. [Mr. President: What about Hamas, Fatah and other members of the PLO that do exactly the same atrocities. Were they excluded from your consideration because their victims are Jews, including American Jews, i.e., subhumans, according to Islam, the religion of your half brothers in Kenya? Did you exclude those outrageous Muslim terrorist murderers because of your Islamic upbringing in Indonesia?]
So, yes, I think that it is just and right for the United States and NATO allies and other allies from around the world to do what we can to eliminate the threat of al Qaeda. [what about Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah?] Now, I think it's important that we don't just do that militarily. I think it's important that we provide educational opportunities for young people in Pakistan and Afghanistan so that they see a different path. And so my policies will be somewhat different, but I don't make any apologies for continuing the effort to prevent bombs going off or planes going into buildings that would kill innocents. I don't think any society can justify that.
...I believe that peace in the Middle East is possible. [Mr. President: I hope you are right. This will be possible only when Muslims worldwide will recognize Jews as people who and whose 3300 year-old history must be fully recognized and respected. Do you believe that you can change the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims to accept this. The moment renown Muslim leaders will announce in public to their Muslim followers the full recognition of the Jewish nation, its history and its national rights, we will all know that peace is possible in the Middle East] I think it will be based on two states, side by side: a Palestinian state and a Jewish state. I think in order to achieve that, both sides are going to have to make compromises. [Mr. President: I fully agree with you and I hope that you will convince the Palestinians state, namely Jordan, to permit Jews to live in it as citizens with equal rights just as Muslims live in Israel as its citizens. You do have to political power and prestige to achieve this. Once this equality is achieved the two countries will certainly be able to compromise on the shape of their common border.]
I think we have a sense of what those compromises should be and will be. Now what we need is political will and courage on the part of leadership. And it is not the United States' role or Turkey's role to tell people what they have to do, but we can be good friends in encouraging them to move the dialogue forward. [Mr. President: I truly appreciate your willingness to get involved and bring a just and lasting peace to the Middle East]
I have to believe that the mothers of Palestinians and the mothers of Israelis hope the same thing for their children. They want them not to be vulnerable to violence. They don't want, when their child gets on a bus, to worry that that bus might explode. They don't want their child to have to suffer indignities because of who they are. And so sometimes I think that if you just put the mothers in charge for a while, that things would get resolved. [Mr. President: You seem to grasp correctly the Muslim -Jewish conflict and I hope you will do your best to alleviate it.]
And it's that spirit of thinking about the future and not the past that I just talked about earlier that I think could help advance the peace process, because if you look at the situation there, over time I don't believe it's sustainable.
It's not sustainable for Israel's security because as populations grow around them, if there is more and more antagonism towards Israel, over time that will make Israel less secure. [Mr. President: Once you manage to achieve recognition of the Jewish nation by the entire Islamic world, something that only you might achieve thank your acceptance by it, the security of Israel will be guaranteed, just like that of the Palestinian state.]
It's not sustainable for the Palestinians because increasingly their economies are unable to produce the jobs and the goods and the income for people's basic quality of life. [Mr. President: Both of us seem to agree with new PM of Israel that this is a key issue and an absolutely necessary step on the route to peace in the Middle East.]
So we know that path is a dead end, and we've got to move in a new direction. But it's going to be hard. A lot of mistrust has been built up, a lot of anger, a lot of hatred. And unwinding that hatred requires patience. [Mr. President: If you just manage to convince the leaders of the Islamic world to recognize and respect the historical rights of the Jewish nation and make Muslim abandon their traditional Koranic misojudaism, which is the driving force of Islamic hatred of Jews, there will be no other hatred or anger to overcome.]
But it has been done. You know, think about -- my Special Envoy to the Middle East is a gentleman named George Mitchell, who was a senator in the United States and then became the Special Envoy for the United States in Northern Ireland. And the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland had been fighting for hundreds of years, and as recently as 20 years ago or 30 years ago, the antagonism, the hatred, was a fierce as any sectarian battle in the world.
And yet because of persistent, courageous efforts by leaders, a peace accord was arrived at. A government that uses the democratic process was formed.
And I had at the White House just a few weeks ago the leader of the Protestants, the leaders of Catholics in the same room, the separatists and the unionists in the same room, as part of a single system. And so that tells me that anything is possible if we're willing to strive for it. [Mr. President: You must have surely realized that the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland has been purely political. Neither Protestants nor Catholics were mandate by their religion to indiscriminately murder and totally exterminate the followers of the rival Christian denomination. Therefore, the analogy you drew between Ireland and the Middle East is based on false premises. The solution of the political conflict in Ireland did not require any change in the basic religious premises of neither the Catholics nor Protestants. The resolution of the conflict in the Middle East requires a fundamental change in the religious premises of Islam. I hope you will succeed in implementing this change]
But it will depend on young people like you being open to new ideas and new possibilities. And it will require young people like you never to stereotype or assume the worst about other people. [Mr. President: I fully agree with you that the way to a real and lasting change is going to take place with the help of the younger, more enlightened generation of Muslims.]
In the Muslim world, this notion that somehow everything is the fault of the Israelis lacks balance -- because there's two sides to every question. That doesn't mean that sometimes one side has done something wrong and should not be condemned. But it does mean there's always two sides to an issue.
I say the same thing to my Jewish friends, which is you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians. Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen.
All right. Thank you very much, everybody. I enjoyed it. (Applause.)
END
1:03 P.M. (Local)
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