Two excellent initiatives by the Obama administration in the lead-up to The Speech tomorrow. They’ve made a point of inviting members of the Egyptian parliament affiliated with the long banned and often forcibly suppressed Muslim Brotherhood to attend The Speech.
And Obama himself put an interesting, and potentially helpful, twist on one of the long-standing Three Preconditions that Hamas will have to meet before the US or other Quartet members will deal with it.
In his interview with NPR on Monday, Obama defined the Preconditions in these terms:
- that you recognize the state of Israel without prejudging what various grievances or claims are appropriate, that you abide by previous agreements, that you renounce violence as a means of achieving your goals
… And he added that if Hamas met these conditions, then ” I think the discussions with Hamas could potentially proceed.”
The “without prejudging” clause there is new and important. As, too, is the impression he conveys that discussions with Hamas are a worthwhile thing to win.
Also notable, of course, in this context is the fact of the longstanding close relations between Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Marc Lynch has reported that the head of the MB parliamentary bloc has said they will attend– and also that the MB declined to join the anti-Obama protest being organized by the Kefaya movement.
Many aspects of that are interesting. When I was in Cairo in February a couple of well-informed friends there noted how very restrained the MB’s reactions to the Mubarak government’s collaboration with Israel in besieging Gaza had been, and speculated that the MB may well be placing a subtle bet on hoping the ageing Egyptian despot’s son Gamal will succeed him– and that Gamal may give them more space for real political participation than any other possible successor.
Who knows? Anyway, it looks as though Obama is setting a very intelligent new tone.
Another important point in his NPR interview came when he talked about the importance of movements like Hamas making the transition from using violence to renouncing it.
Of course, governments like Israel can be expected to make that transition, too. Just like Britain eventually did, in Northern Ireland.
… I am still in Damascus. I’ll be blogging some reactions from various parties here to The Speech, before I leave Saturday morning. Stay tuned.
Next week, I’ll have a piece in the CSM on the fascinating experience Turkey has had of being governed by a party that is both moderately Islamist and committed to democracy. Turkey’s AKP is such a good role model for other Islamist movements.
By the way, can any reader confirm for me what time– Cairo time– The Speech is scheduled for? Thanks!
And I would be delighted to publish reactions to The Speech, especially from readers who are part of the intended Muslim-world prime audience.
I hope Bibi is paying attention. This is what it is like to be out maneuvered. He tried to “go over” Obama’s head by appealing to Congress. Harumphfff! Obama is going over his head by engaging all 6,780,000,000 non-Israelis. Poor simple minded Bibi.
An implicit quid pro quo would be fine: Hamas recognizing Israel concurrently with Israel explicitly endorsing the two state solution–recognizing Palestinians’ right to a state of their own. As I understand it, part of the problem with Oslo was that Arafat got hoodwinked into recognizing Israel without getting Israeli acceptance of Palestinian rights in return.
The notion that Palestinians have rights will be a hard pill for Bibi and the settlers to swallow, but swallow it they must if they have any desire for peace. Once that is done, I suspect that Hamas’ intransigence will be surprisingly easy to break down.
Helena,
I am still in Damascus. I’ll be blogging some reactions from various parties here to The Speech, before I leave Saturday morning. Stay tuned.
While you been there you may interesting you that in the news Syrian accepting visiting US military official to Syria in efforts of on going improve relations.
Also US invited Iranian diplomats to be participated in an officail event in WH, so there there is some flow of new blood in the dead veins
You said it, John.
If Obama can make the next step of acknowledging that Israel too must recognize the Palestinian state, and that Israel too must renounce violence, AND if he makes his insistence on no settlement expansion stick, AND if he can get serious about letting Israel know that an attack on Iran will merit those “consequences” that we keep hearing about, then it may be that we could be on the road to peace.
But the road to peace is a two-way street. I think the American People are ready to see this. It’s the American political establishment that isn’t.
You said it, John.
If Obama can make the next step of acknowledging that Israel too must recognize the Palestinian state, and that Israel too must renounce violence, AND if he makes his insistence on no settlement expansion stick, AND if he can get serious about letting Israel know that an attack on Iran will merit those “consequences” that we keep hearing about, then it may be that we could be on the road to peace.
But the road to peace is a two-way street. I think the American People are ready to see this. It’s the American political establishment that isn’t.
What sticks out to me is this phrase:
“that (Hamas) renounce(s) violence as a means of achieving (its) goals”
Which is to say, he seems to be giving Hamas room to defend itself legitimately. i.e. If Israel has the right to use violence to defend itself, so does Hamas. The language is (hopefully) opening up to be more fair, which is a constructive step. The inference is that both parties have a right to defend themselves, neither has the right to use violence as a means of achieving political goals.
We’ll see though..
Requiring Hamas to renounce violence and recognise all the Israeli inequities of the past 60 years is rather like requiring the lamb to lay down with the wolf. This is absurd
Not quite, Paul. It is more like requiring the lamb to declare to all the world that the wolf has always had and always will have the right to eat all it wants daily of fresh, tender lamb meat, and drink its fill of lamb’s blood, that lambs have been wrong to make it difficult for the wolf to sate itself on lamb’s meat and blood, and that from now on all lambs will be required to quietly roll over and expose their tender bellies to the wolf’s fangs so that the wolf will not have to work so hard for the blood and meat meals to which it is addicted.
The problem with Israelis when it comes to any talk with her neighbor when all tune is ready with pressure subjected on Israelis to come to the table, they starting make their conditions on the other side of negotiate.
Now Hamas to renounce violence and recognise all the Israeli inequities or Syria before these are coming and going saga Israelis using them to get off any deals that bound them to a treaty on common ground and not on their terms of surrenders for her neighbors…
It’s really about the will of both parties committed to peace talk.
Israelis should be willing with her neighbors without any conditions, her neighbors accepting to talk to here is a big change for Israelis.They are for decades have dreamed that one day her neighbors agree to set with them and talk; now this is reality a long way change and they are ready to talk.
Israeli should set and talk to Hamas, To PLO to other neighbors with open mind and good faith to resolve a complicated conflict.
In the end the negotiations will go through steps that resolve the differences and accepting common ground for the sick of peace in ME. Otherwise the peace will far away for decade to come.
“For such people, a single state is an opportunity for Israeli Jews to atone for the historic crime of forming their own state, rather than an instrument for them to live with their neighbours as equals.”
“today, the notion of a thriving, independent, sovereign Jewish state living in true peace with its neighbors appears to be an impossible dream – yet worth seeking.”
Just to insert some healthy skeptism in this explosion of jubilent expectations the views of Rober Fisk, from The Independent of 6-2-2009:
Robert Fisk: Most Arabs know this speech will make little difference
I suspect that what the Arab world wants to hear is that Obama will take his soldiers out of Muslim lands
More and more, it looks like the same old melody that Bush’s lads used to sing. We’re not against the Muslim world. In fact, we are positively for it. We want you to have democracy, up to a point. We love Arab “moderates” and we want to reach out to you and be your friends. Sorry about Iraq. And sorry – again, up to a point – about Afghanistan and we do hope that you understand why we’ve got to have a little “surge” in Helmand among all those Muslim villages with their paper-thin walls. And yes, we’ve made mistakes.
Everyone in the world, or so it seems, is waiting to see if this is what Barack Obama sings. I’m not sure, though, that the Arabs are waiting with such enthusiasm as the rest of the world.
I haven’t met an Arab in Egypt – or an Arab in Lebanon, for that matter – who really thinks that Obama’s “outreach” lecture in Cairo on Thursday is going to make much difference.
They watched him dictate to Bibi Netanyahu – no more settlements, two-state solution – and they saw Bibi contemptuously announce, on the day that Mahmoud Abbas, the most colourless leader in the Arab world, went to the White House, that Israel’s colonial project in the West Bank would continue unhindered. So that’s that, then.
And please note that Obama has chosen Egypt for his latest address to the Muslims, a country run by an ageing potentate – Hosni Mubarak is 80 – who uses his secret police like a private army to imprison human rights workers, opposition politicians, anyone in fact who challenges the great man’s rule. At this point, we won’t mention torture. Be sure that this little point is unlikely to get much play in the Obama sermon, just as he surely will not be discussing Saudi Arabia’s orgy of head-chopping when he chats to King Abdullah on Wednesday.
conitinued here: Fisk on Obama speech in Egypt
As is usually the case (except when it comes to Lebanon, where I think dear old Robert is blinded by his association with certain people), Robert Fisk and I are very much on the same wavelength. I am prepared to be underwhelmed, and in any case, all the pretty speeches in the world are meaningless without some significant and consistent actions that go along with the pretty words.
As the Arabs are fond of saying, Obama is just the other head of the same coin.
Shirin – its not often I would agree with both you and Fisk, but:
Obama’s speech seemed to boil down to:
” Sotry about the past. We won’t be after your oil any more from now on. We’ve seen the error of our ways. We’re going green”
That’ll be good news, I guess, to the street?
Obama declared principles of an even-handed approach towards all peoples. This was received with silence, and in the absence of historic favoritism for Israel, this might have seemed to be a weak stance.
But remember, he is forcing the issue on the Israeli settlements and to do so, he must declare the US to be a neutral broker.
HUFFINGTON POST urges Obama to bring Ahmadinejad to Buchenwald.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/05/obama-ahmadinejad-should_n_211762.html
But is there any illusion that Ahmadinejad does not know how evil man is to man? He knows well, as did Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and so many in power over a pool of blood. And yet…
I cannot imagine why Obama would want Ahmadinejad to see Buchenwald. It is too late as everything there is symbols, symbols used by the US, the USSR, Israel, no longer the human testament to ho man is wold to man. Far more important is to show that we have yet to learn. The old lesson of History lingers: the weaker is massacred viciously; but the survivors, when they regroup and achieve power, will always do onto others as has been done onto themselves. Our species learned nothing, as Iran’s daily torture of Iranians shows. Ahmadinejad never denied the Holocaust, he only decried its sacrilegious abuse by the very Zionists who only exploited it back then rather than help their own survive. Today we see Diaspora Jews called on to break their joyous Diaspora assimilation to become agents of Israel before driven in fear an a giant aliyah to Israel by 2020. The lebensraum thesis of today’s Zionists is much like that of the Germans. Man as wolf to man never changes, we never learn. Instead we use history as a jumbled myth of exclusiveness. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ncJiPnlt8&NR=1