Sound The Trumpet : Skeptics Warn of Backlash to â€˜great Expectations'

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“Skeptics Warn of Backlash to â€˜great Expectations'”
by Arutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalayhu
June 5th, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech “to the Muslim world” on Thursday did not meet many Arab expectations that he state concrete policies in favor of the Muslim world and against Israel. He reached beyond authoritarian Arab governments and appealed to the "man on the street" with promises of equality, democracy and economic development.

The Muslim world’s expectations of the historic speech varied from cautious hope to deep skepticism among leaders and spokesmen for the 1.4 billion strong Muslim world. The buildup to the speech was so intense that a wide range of commentators have stated the creation of “Great Expectations” could boomerang.

James Zogby, founder of the Arab-American Institute and a leading Arab spokesman in the United States, warned that “expectations are high and dare not be let down. This speech must be more than banal clichés ("we are not at war with Muslims") or a repetition of hollow visions. It must be bigger, more consequential and more substantial.”

The president’s speech was one of his typical rhetorical successes, most analysts said, but the clichés that Zogby feared were not spared, with several quotes from the Koran as well as one from the Talmud.

Except for previously announced condemnations of terror in the Palestinian Authority and of a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, President Obama did not mention any specific plan except to use his "personal" efforts to put pressure on both Israel and the PA. He has the means to use economic and defense aid as a lever, assuming Congress supports him.

The problem with his message for many Muslims, including those in Egypt, is that those who did not hear the speech live will be dependent on negative interpretations from media, much of which is state-controlled.

Amr Adeeb, host of a popular television program broadcast throughout the Middle East, said, "Why should I tell my audience that the United States is a good friend and a good ally and that they are helping us? They are cutting aid every day. They are not giving us the right weapons; they are not giving us the right tools to survive – although they are giving Israel everything.”

“Actions, not just words – that was the strongest common sentiment we encountered this week when asking people in Cairo what they would be listening for in Obama's speech,” MSNBC reported.

The Washington Post noted, “The ultimate measure of whether this week's visit is a success is whether what Obama says begins to change behavior among parties who have so often frustrated the efforts of previous presidents to make peace."

Ibrahim Kalin, a scholar in Ankara, Turkey, and adviser to the Turkish prime minister told the newspaper, "You have never seen a president who has raised expectations so high in the Arab and Muslim world, for the good. 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.”

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13