Obama Faces Democratic Backlash over Attitude towards Israel
America's First Muslim President
The Obama government also has refused to state if it will honor a commitment by his predecessor George W. Bush, who wrote Israel that facts on the ground dictate that large population centers in Judea and Samaria must remain under Israeli sovereignty.
"I think the president went beyond where I think it was appropriate for us to go in dealing with another democracy," said Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner. "Any conversations about settlements, which are perfectly reasonable, have to be coupled with a sincere effort on the part of the Palestinians."
He told a press conference, "We have to be careful not to cross the line where it sounds like we are exerting the overwhelming pressure that we have at our disposal on our rather isolated ally." Democratic Congressmen Shelley Berkley and Joseph Crowley also were present and backed the statements.
Rep. Berkley stated, "We are very, very concerned that the statements were made so publicly to such a close and strong ally as the state of Israel."
However, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer backed President Obama’s policy against any expansion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
The Republican party has been far from silent on the Obama government’s strategy, which will be under close scrutiny as he delivers a major address in Cairo on Thursday to the Muslim world.
Rep. Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip, warned that Arab terror “shows no sign of abating” and that “President Obama's insistence that it is in America's best interest to pressure Israel sends the wrong message to the region.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee this week launched a fundraising campaign against President Obama’s increasingly openness to Iran. “Obama and the Democrats believe an unstable country, which has pledged to wipe Israel off the map and is awash with oil, has legitimate needs for nuclear power. Yet, America which continues to see rising energy prices, does not need nuclear power,” the committee stated in an e-mail.
The opposition to the White House is not about to change President Obama’s policies very quickly, if at all, analysts said. George Washington University professor Nathan Brown told the French news agency AFP,
“A popular president with a majority in Congress at the beginning of his term may be in an ideal position -- and, so far, Obama's pressure has been firm but very polite and solely verbal. The real question will be what happens if the Israeli government responds hostilely and Obama tries to follow words with actions."
Nevertheless, an overwhelming majority of Congressmen have signed a letter asking the president to tone down his public statements against Israel.
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Obama: ‘No’ to PA Terror and Jewish Building in Yesha
President Barack Obama said in Cairo he will put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to stop terror and on Israel to stop building in Judea and Samaria. Obama began speaking before 3,000 guests at Cairo University at 1:10 p.m. local time.
He opened the speech with “Peace to you” in Arabic and reminded his listeners of his Muslim background.
The Muslim world’s expectations of the historic speech varied from great hope to deep skepticism among leaders and spokesmen for the 1.4-billion Muslim world. The build-up to the speech was so intense that a wide range of commentators have stated the creation of “Great Expectations” will boomerang.
"You have never seen a president who has raised expectations so high in the Arab and Muslim world, for the good," Ibrahim Kalin, a scholar in Ankara, Turkey, and adviser to the Turkish prime minister told the Washington Post. "People see in him something they would like to see in their own leaders, and that, in itself, creates huge expectations."
The Arab News website of Saudi Arabia, in an editorial welcoming President Obama’s arrival on Wednesday, wrote that “for too long the Arab world has been waiting in vain for a U.S. administration that will address the rights of the Palestinians within a viable sovereign state of their own.
“The American president has to cut through much lumber left by his predecessors. At the heart of it lies a legacy of often-deep distrust that has built up in the Arab world.”
Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), often accused of supporting Hamas, advised that President Obama must back up positive statements “with concrete policy initiatives.”
The Asia Times went so far as to say that the American president made a mistake by speaking in Cairo. “Why should the president of the United States address the ‘Muslim world,” it stated. “What would happen if the leader of a big country addressed the ‘Christian world’? Half the world would giggle and the other half would sulk.
“To speak to the ‘Muslim world’ is to speak not to a fact, but rather to an aspiration, and that is the aspiration that Islam shall be a global state religion as its founders intended. To address this aspiration is to breathe life into it. For an American president to validate such an aspiration is madness.”
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