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June 19, 2009

Netanyahu's Cold Peace

 This piece appears in today's Ha'aretz.

Speaking at Bar-Ilan University last Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to be targeting three distinct audiences with his messages. First was an audience of one - the president of the United States. The words "Palestinian state" were intended primarily for his ears. Next were Netanyahu's supporters in the United States, desperate for ammunition in the battle to depict their Israeli champion as reasonable, and to push the blame for any impasse back onto Arab and Palestinian shoulders. Third, and no less important, was the premier's domestic constituency. That his speech did not spark even the slightest coalition crisis reveals more about the stinginess of his words than it does about the sturdiness of his coalition.

So who was Netanyahu not talking to that night?

Certainly, the Arab and Palestinian publics, including 1.3 million of his own citizens, were not priority audiences. Yes, technically, the premier did turn to "all Arab leaders" and to "our Palestinian neighbors"; he is, of course, ready to meet them, any time, anywhere, and to cooperate on advancing an "economic peace." But Netanyahu was not engaging, or even reaching out. He was offering a history lesson.

By far the longest section of the Bar-Ilan speech was devoted to answering a question that Netanyahu himself posed: "What is the root of the conflict?" For him there is only one narrative: a narrow, unreconstructed and self-righteous nationalist discourse. It is designed to resonate well with the Israeli-Jewish public, and its exclusivity guarantees its inability to muster any legitimacy on the other side.

The emphasis Netanyahu placed on this narrative begs the question: Can it coexist with a two-state solution? Before one even begins to address that, two important caveats should be noted. The prime minister raised a host of practical issues (among them territory, settlements, Jerusalem, refugees and security), all of which he would have difficulty swallowing for a two-state solution to become reality, and that would probably happen only under a strong, U.S.-led external push. His narrative also precludes any true equality for the 20 percent of Israel's population that is Palestinian Arab. Irrespective of any two-state arrangement, Israel finally needs to square the circle of being both a democracy and a national home to the Jewish people. Indeed, the "Jewish state" framing has thus far fallen woefully short in practice.

If Netanyahu really believes that in order to make peace, the Arabs and Palestinians will need to become Zionists, then there will be no peace. If retaining this recalcitrant narrative is his way of delivering a rightist-led yet viable two-state reality, however, then things get interesting. As Likud leader and bearer of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Revisionist legacy, Netanyahu should understand the inadmissibility of the former proposition. Jabotinsky understood that the Palestinian Arabs would never embrace Zionism - regardless of the economic peace and industrial parks on offer. One could even argue that the Abbas-Fatah leadership, in bucking this trend, was doomed to fail: It unconditionally accepted Israel, rejected resistance and assumed the mantle of peace partner, even while the Palestinians remained under occupation. Israel under Netanyahu is offering nothing to such a Palestinian partner, and perhaps it is more honest and even healthier that way. But can narratives be one thing and practicalities another?

Such an approach would have clear implications. It offers a cold peace of the kind that has worked and withstood the test of time with Egypt and Jordan. It should inform Palestinian strategy and drive the need for Palestinian national reconciliation. Most of all, it calls for a mature and dispassionate reading of those power dynamics by all the key protagonists.

I would agree with Palestinian academic Ahmad Khalidi, who suggested in The Guardian last month that "despite their current split, the majority of Palestinians - including Hamas - have accepted the political reality of Israel." Nonetheless, he went on to argue, it would be a mistake to think they will "acknowledge Israel's historic and moral claim to what were once Palestinian Arab lands." Hamas has not gone far enough in recognizing the limitations and counter-productive nature of indiscriminate violence. The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has gone too far in limiting its toolbox exclusively to negotiations with Israel and in giving a nod to the idea of governance and security capacity being prerequisites to de-occupation. Neither Palestinian party has sufficiently appreciated the efficacy of nonviolent resistance to occupation.

Israel may have a longer journey to acknowledge the overreach constituted by continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and its thickening of the infrastructure of that occupation. Israel may be the world's highest defense spender relative to its population (according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), but there are limits to what that spending can deliver (as witnessed recently in both Gaza and Lebanon).

The increasingly aggressive and egregious measures that Israel's occupation takes against the Palestinian civilian population are beginning to threaten, on an unprecedented scale, both Israel's democracy and its international support. And this is no longer a conversation just among ourselves. Truths are being belatedly spoken to all sides where it matters most - in Washington. Israel now has a friend in the White House who is willing to hold a mirror up to these hard realities of political power. 

 

June 16, 2009

Bibi's Baby Step: What Next After Netanyahu's Speech?

 By Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah

 This piece also appears at The Huffington Post.

 

"One giant leap for Benjamin Netanyahu, but just one small step for Middle East peace."
That was how commentators in both of Israel's leading dailies, Yehidot Ahronot and Ma'ariv, chose to describe the Prime Minister's address yesterday. One thing can definitely be concluded from the speech, Ben Rhodes has not been on loan from the White House and stationed in Jerusalem for the last week. It was a poor speech stylistically. Even the historical and biblical quotes were of the predictable and plodding kind, it lacked grandeur or any sense of occasion. More importantly, it was also a mean-spirited, often petty and parochial speech in its substance, "a speech without a gram of nobility," as commentator Ofer Shelach wrote in Ma'ariv.

Israel has just lived through two prime ministers who made significant journeys from their right-wing roots and even if neither entered the promised land of peace, both made gestures in that direction. Ariel Sharon acknowledged the occupation as did his successor Ehud Olmert, who went much further in recognizing a Palestinian narrative and displaying some empathy to, for instance, the Palestinian refugees. Judging from the Bar-Ilan University speech, Benjamin Netanyahu has barely set out on that journey. For him, there was no occupation, talk of Judea and Samaria but no West Bank, and there was no sense of humanity in his approach to the Palestinians. Although they are his neighbors and even 20% of his own citizenry, their world would seem to be totally alien to him. He called, for instance, on the Arab world to develop together joint tourist sites, such as, "around the walls of Jericho and the walls of Jerusalem," with no apparent appreciation for the irony of referring to walls in this context.

Netanyahu, perhaps understandably, spoke to a lowest common denominator - Jewish Israeli consensus, and his right wing coalition was sleeping easy last night. And yet, he uttered those two magic words, Palestinian state. The list of conditionalities surrounding the establishment of that state may have been so extensive as to drain the very idea of statehood of any meaning but still, he said it.

The Obama administration had asked for two things: on a settlement freeze they received a blunt 'No'; on Palestinian statehood, it was a highly conditioned 'Yes, but...'. As Israel TV and Ma'ariv analyst Ben Caspit put it, "welcome Mr. Prime Minister to the 20th century. The problem is that we're already in the 21st."

So what happens next? What are the consequences of this speech and what can be done in its wake? Here are five suggestions, most of them for the Obama administration but a thought also on the Palestinian response.

First, as the White House Press Secretary immediately did, pocket that Palestinian statehood commitment. However minor it may seem, however wrapped in negatives, it is something to build on. It is also clearly something that cannot be left to the parties themselves to translate into a workable plan for actually realizing a two-state reality. That will be a job for the US and its international and regional allies.

Second, treat the Israeli Prime Minister's emphasis on security issues and conditionalities as an invitation. Once he got past the historical lecture, Benjamin Netanyahu actually laid out some reasonable concerns with regard to the security arrangements and guarantees that a peace agreement would have to address. Netanyahu spent three paragraphs outlining the demilitarization, monitoring, air-space requirements, and other security factors weighing on his mind, and Netanyahu made a direct plea, "today we ask our friends in the international community, led by the United States for what is critical to the security of Israel."

The Obama administration should respond and present a detailed plan for answering Israel's legitimate security concerns in the context of a two-state solution. There will of course be a parallel ask of Israel from its "friends in the international community led by the United States" - end the occupation, agree to a border based on the '67 lines with only minor reciprocal modifications, including arrangements for Jerusalem, and for the refugees, and for real Palestinian sovereignty.

Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday opened the door for this kind of an arrangement. He also notably did not mention the effort of American General Keith Dayton or the Palestinian Security Forces. The message is clear. Security will have to be an internationally-led effort and capacity-building in the Palestinian security sector should from now on be treated as something that is perhaps useful but of a secondary order of magnitude.

Third, the Obama administration and the Quartet must push back in response to Netanyahu's settlement freeze rejectionism. Netanyahu promised there would be no new settlements or additional land confiscations but there would be a normal life, which is referred to in the technical jargon as "natural growth". The settler leadership understood this ruse for what it is, and when Israel Channel One cut from the speech to settler leaders in Ma'aleh Adumim, they were celebrating. "We do not need new land or new settlements," said local mayor Benny Kasriel, former head of the settlers' council, "just to keep building." One can see his point. The West Bank settler population has increased from 111,000 to over 290,000 since the Oslo process began in 1993 (the number reaches almost 500,000 including East Jerusalem). The vast majority of that was under the rubric of natural growth, and there are vast expanses of land annexed to settlement municipalities awaiting construction.

The Obama administration needs to stick to its principle of a total freeze, whether in public or private conversation, and as former ambassador Daniel Kurtzer pointed out in Sunday's Washington Post, there are no previous understandings on this matter between Washington and Jerusalem (and supposed friends of Israel, like Elliott Abrams, are a danger to Israel and to the America-Israel relationship when they claim otherwise). There can be only one place for a discussion of the future of settlements and that is delineating a permanent status border between Israel and Palestine.

Fourth, Netanyahu's speech should provide a spur for Palestinian national reconciliation and unity (though we doubt this will be the case). The disappointed PA response, while understandable, was somewhat beside the point. The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza have heard an Israeli national narrative and position. Adhering to Palestinian divisions, and a strategy exclusively based on negotiations has even less logic or credibility as of yesterday. The Palestinians will need to find a way to sufficiently unify their own national narrative. Simultaneously they need to develop a common position on negotiations in parallel with a willingness to use nonviolent struggle in opposing the continued occupation (as President Obama hinted at in his Cairo speech).

Finally, the Obama administration should interpret both the venue of Netanyahu's speech (the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies) and his repeated reference to Begin-Sadat as a subliminal message. Benjamin Netanyahu is asking to go down in history as a historical leader of Israel just as Menachim Begin did, and this time by securing a comprehensive peace and final borders with all of Israel's neighbors, including the Palestinians (Menachem Begin settled for just Egypt). Begin never thought he would withdraw from all of the Sinai and evacuate the settlements there, but with American guidance, it happened and has vitally served Israel's interests.

After only one month of American complaint regarding settlements, Netanyahu has already said the magic words - Palestinian state. Now at the Begin-Sadat Center he was signaling that he wants to be carried further, all the way in fact, and his non-mention of the Golan Heights was another hint that it's a comprehensive peace he wants America to lead him to... well, maybe not. But we prefer this interpretation to all of the alternatives.

Too Early to Call

 By Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah

This piece also appears at Talking Points Memo.

 

Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of Iranians demonstrating in Tehran, Rasht, Orumiyeh, Zahedan, and Tabriz. The mostly non-violent demonstrations are the largest, and most evocative, of the 1979 revolution against the Shah that Iran has seen. The pictures coming out of Iran are amazing and focus attention on what is really at stake in this conflict - just how much of a Republic is the Islamic Republic of Iran going to be?

We believe this is an existentially important moment for Iran - perhaps the most important one since the Revolution. The odds are always with whoever has control of the army and airwaves. People can be forgiven for already assuming that the hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating today in Tehran will fail in contesting the election results. Perhaps they will. But then again, perhaps they won't. Mir-Hossein Mousavi has a lot of people on his side and we don't just mean the throngs in the street. He was accompanied today in his appearance in Tehran in front of his supporters with former President Mohamed Khatami and the other rival presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi. Even the right wing candidate (to the right of Ahmadinejad), Mohsen Razaee (a former leader of the Revolutionary Guard), has contested the election results. And these aren't necessarily soft touches.... Each was involved in the revolution that brought down the US supported monarchy and still remembers how that went.

Of course, this is not a fight to overthrow the Republic - for many of the demonstrators, this is a fight to save the Republic, such as it were. It is an indicator of a strong level of support in Iran for the system of a constitutional republic, if not with the limitations that have been placed on it. It shows a remarkable politicization of the Iranian middle class that must be causing shudders throughout parts of the Arab world, just as the overthrow of the Shah did almost exactly thirty years ago. If for no other reason, this attempt to demand accountability by those convinced they were denied their vote is supremely admirable. It also shows that while there has been significant trust by masses of Iranians in the system itself (if in fact it is true that over 80% of eligible voters turned in their ballots), it also shows a significant lack of trust in those institutions which head the system.

Frustrating as it is, the United States should avoid getting involved. This is an Iranian fight for Iranian freedoms, and that struggle is noble enough to win our hopes even if we are in no position to affect its outcome.

The Iranian elections and the resulting popular discontent inside Iran have generated some inside the beltway arguments already. Our colleagues at the New America Foundation, Patrick Doherty and Flynt Leverett, in two separate pieces have argued that the elections in Iran were legitimate and that all the evidence leading up to the election showed that the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was going to win. Flynt and Hillary Mann make the cogent point that the US has to learn to deal with Iran as a state and not individuals and will have to come to grips with addressing the underlying issues on which we disagree, but on which there is general unanimity among Iranian politicians - such as the right to pursue nuclear energy. While we agree with the conclusion - the US has the same general challenges facing it regardless of whether Ahmadinejad or Mousavi is the president - we disagree with the assumption that the elections were fair based on past polling which indicated a plurality, but not a majority, selecting Ahmadinejad.

While we can't be certain, there are some very compelling arguments suggesting that the results as declared by the Iranian interior ministry are flawed. Juan Cole in his blog entry "Stealing the Iranian Elections" provides an excellent summary of those arguments which include the surprisingly low levels of support for Mousavi in his home region of Tabriz, the overall low numbers for Karroubi and Rezaee (especially when compared to Karroubi's numbers in the 2005 elections) and the alleged majority in Tehran for Ahmadinejad. Cole also debunks the class and culture wars argument being made suggesting that the reform movement is really a narrow and elite-based northern Tehran effort. He argues that, whenever tested, its roots have been proven to be socially broader and deeper.

In addition, we ourselves would ask if there were such broad public support for Ahmadinejad, why has there been such a concerted government attempt to shut down media and communications networks? The government isn't acting with the assurance of one that has two-thirds of the public behind it.

The real question for the United States is not to decide on behalf of the Iranians who really got elected, but to prepare for the aftermath. We have a shoddy enough history in interfering in other people's electoral politics without getting involved in this one.

Reuters quotes a retired 61-year-old teacher who gave his name only as Ali who said the rally recalled the 1979 Islamic revolution. "We used to protest against the shah in this street. I'm so sorry that now we have to walk the same street to preserve our rights."

The fact that Iranians are making that march again is a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself - regardless of what happens tomorrow.

 

**
Amjad Atallah and Daniel Levy co-direct the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.

June 4, 2009

10 Comments on Obama in Cairo – Still Accumulating, Not Expending Capital

 This piece was also published at TPM Café .

The Obama team’s remarkable wordsmithery and the president’s unparalleled capacity for delivery were exquisitely on display again today in Cairo. But this speech should perhaps be remembered as much for what was not said. Gone was the arrogance and lecturing: there was no lavishing of praise on Egypt’s undemocratic leader – the word ‘Mubarak’ was not even mentioned once. Out too was the purple finger version of democratization and even the traditional American condescension toward the Palestinian narrative. But perhaps most remarkably of all, the words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’ did not pass the president’s lips. Here was a leader and a team around him smart enough to acknowledge that certain words have become too tainted, too laden with baggage, their use has become counter-productive, today the Global War on Terror framing was truly laid to rest.

 

Particularly striking was that President Obama almost certainly has emerged from the Cairo speech having accumulated additional capital rather than expending it, with greater popularity, traction, and respect among not only his ostensible target audience, the Muslim world, but also globally, including at home in America and even in Israel and with the world’s Jewish community. His future leverage across a range of issues has been enhanced.

It’s true that whenever the speech descended from the lofty heights of 30,000 feet to the 100-feet resolution of policy specifics and details, the magic dust seemed to dissipate as it emerged from the clouds, and those details were too often more autopilot than reset. But this was a big picture speech, and there is room later to make those course corrections on policy detail.

Here then are ten quick thoughts:

 

1. The Mother of All Resets

 The president’s speech literally in one fell swoop will have much of the Muslim world and certainly elites, opinion leaders, and activists scratching their heads and recalibrating their stance toward America. Yes, for everyone the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, what comes next and whether policy changes on specific issues. The immediate effect though is to buy America space and time. It gives those who share an affinity with American values a new lease of life, causes the majority who are not hostile to the US but deeply skeptical of its intentions to reconsider and suspend judgment, and it will induce in America’s enemies a splitting headache.

At a most basic level, the president managed to connect. He spoke humbly and touched on buzz words for this audience, discussing dignity, justice, and the truths we hold in our hearts. He even uttered the word colonialism and mentioned denial of rights and cold-ward proxies. Obama evoked Islam’s contribution to the world and to America, and yes, he quoted the Quran.  Above all, he restored balance, confining the label of enemy only to those violent extremists who threaten America’s security, while opening up to the vast majority of practicing Muslims, including, I would argue, Islamist movements.

 

2. In Cairo the Conversation with Political Islam Began

By narrowly focusing on al-Qaeda as the enemy and apparently articulating an understanding of the non-al-Qaeda Islamist narrative, the president seemed to extend a tentative but visibly unclenched fist to mainstream political Islam. It is those Islamist movements that we should be most closely watching in the weeks and months ahead as they begin to work through their own responses to the new administration.

Obama seemed to implicitly accept the legitimacy of political Islam and its role in the democratic process while challenging it to unequivocally reject violence against civilians. There was a stark contrast, for instance, between the president’s message to al-Qaeda (we will defeat you if you threaten us) as compared to his message to Hamas (whom he addressed directly as having a role to fulfill Palestinian aspirations and unify the Palestinian people).

The president’s historical analogies may not have been the best ones. In discussing the nonviolent resistance of black America to the “lash of the whip” in achieving equal rights he obviously made a powerful and reasonable point but one that may be more relevant to a Palestinian struggle for a one-state democracy rather than for national liberation and de-occupation. By claiming that the same story can be told in South Africa and elsewhere, he simply rewrote history – the ANC did of course use armed resistance in their struggle as did so many other successful liberation movements.

That said, Obama’s effort to carry the argument in somewhat sympathetic terms to the Palestinian resistance–“violence…rockets…is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered”–was a valiant one and should be encouraged, not least in Israel. I might be reading too much into this but the speech could be seen as an acknowledgement that a process that engages Hamas is more likely to produce results than one that does not.

Responding immediately on al-Jazeera, Ahmed Yusuf, advisor to Gaza Prime Minister Haniyeh, lavished praised on Obama’s “Martin Luther King-like speech” and his rejection of the clash of civilizations discourse while defensively questioning his call for Hamas to accept the international community’s three preconditions (end violence, accept past agreements, recognize Israel).The distinction though was clear and the years of wrong-headedly lumping together the Salafist jihadis of al-Qaeda with the Muslim Brothers of Hamas or the Hezbollah movement is over.

 

3. Regaining the Moral Clarity of 9/11

Almost eight years on, there it was, an American president explaining to the world what happened on that day and the war of necessity against al-Qaeda that was launched in its wake. It was an important moment in resetting and reconfiguring for international and Muslim public opinion what happened then and has happened since. It is also perhaps the most damning indictment of all for the Bush presidency that in 2009 such a reiteration by an American president is so necessary.

President Obama also reissued a clear statement of America’s interests across a range of issues from getting out of Iraq and achieving a Palestinian state to its goals in Afghanistan, and shared values with so much of the Muslim world in promoting basic freedoms, religious pluralism, women’s rights, and development.

 

 

4. Finally a President Who Can Talk to Palestinians

 Obama’s words on the Palestinian situation were not remarkable for his advocacy of a two-state solution, his mentioning of Palestine, or his opposition to the settlements. All of that we have heard before, and in fact, the speech gave precious little by way of actually articulating a plan for Palestinian de-occupation and statehood. But that was also its strength.

The idea of a Palestinian state, even before it exists, has lost much of its luster and appeal for Palestinians precisely because American and Israeli leaders talked about statehood as a technical fix for a Palestinian problem, in exclusively economic, governance, and security terms. In so doing, they ignored or demeaned and denied the Palestinian narrative and made the whole arrangement sound rather unappetizing.

Today, President Obama began to redress that. PA capacity and economic opportunities were something of a footnote. And thankfully, the building of Palestinian security forces was not even mentioned.

Instead Obama spoke a language that actual Palestinians could relate to, recalling the 60-year “pain of dislocation,” the “wait in refugee camps” (without in the same breath emasculating the refugees of any rights). He spoke of humiliation, occupation, and an intolerable situation – in other words, Palestinian daily reality. Only after recognizing the Palestinian experience did he chart the course for achieving “the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity,” namely, via a Palestinian state. This shift in discourse may be lost on most American ears, not so for Palestinians and in the Arab and Muslim world, and it begins to give Obama a moral authority that will allow him to address this issue in speaking directly to the Palestinian people above the heads of their divided leadership.

 

5. Shimon Peres Could Not Have Done a Better Job

In what is becoming classical Obama, he at the same time presented perhaps the most compelling justification and explanation of Israel’s rights and its existence ever spoken in an Arab and Muslim capital. No Israeli has ever done a better job, he is a true friend. In the most unequivocal of terms and in a speech that so captured Muslim world attention, Obama placed the notions of threatening Israel’s destruction, stereotypes of Jews, and Holocaust denial, as being irredeemably beyond the pale and unacceptable. And he reaffirmed America’s “unbreakable bond with Israel.”

Tellingly, if unsurprisingly, it is these messages that are leading the Israeli news coverage of the speech. While the government of Benjamin Netanyahu may be squirming in discomfort at Obama’s reasoned and repeated calls for a settlement freeze, for reopening Gaza, and for Palestinian statehood, the Israeli public will, I think, be both reassured and keen to believe in the hope for change and a better future for them also.

One imagines too that the day is not so far off for an honest, empathetic, and home-truths Obama speech to Israel and the Jewish world. Expect that speech to be not only well-received but also to bring us dramatically closer to finally ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and achieving that two-state solution. Obama’s use of the phrase, “align American policies with those who pursue peace,” will also be noted in Jerusalem. Finally, by referring to “Jewish homeland” rather than a Jewish state, Obama, I think, studiously avoided giving succor to the slew of racist laws being presented in the new Israeli Knesset. 

 

6. Policy Details – More Auto-Pilot Than Reset.

In a speech that I genuinely think carries game-changing potential for so many issues that America and the Muslim world are caught up in, there was virtually nothing new in detailed policy terms. That is very probably due to the nature of the speech, and the detailed policy changes might follow in the coming months. But if they don’t, Cairo will go down as a moment of unrequited promise and opportunity.

On Israel-Palestine, we dusted off the Road Map (yet again), a Bush relic that should have long ago been filed in the trash can, and the Afghanistan and Iraq plans still do not sound too convincing. It’s unclear how even Obama’s more sophisticated version of democratization will be advanced with America’s staunchest and most democracy-resistant allies, and the way forward with Iran remains opaque. Noteworthy, too, was that in a speech stating that America has no designs on maintaining military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continued American military footprint elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world was not touched upon.

 

7. Hosni Mubarak and the Perils of Playing Host

Egypt’s rulers would no doubt have been mortified had this speech taken place anywhere else in the Arab or Muslim world. There is an understandable Egyptian sense of pride in their history and sense of longing to still be considered the region’s leading power. Having landed those hosting rights, Mubarak’s regime today had to live with the consequences. Obama spoke to his audience and to the Egyptian people, and in an interesting break from past practice, his presidential host Mr. Mubarak was not even mentioned let alone lavished with praise. It will not go unnoticed.


Obama did mention Egypt’s Christian Coptic minority and of course spoke to human rights and people choosing their own governments to loud applause. So much for all the neocon bleating before the speech about Obama being a valueless realist ready to sell freedom-spirited Egyptians down the river. I was not there, but a sense of being empowered almost seemed to echo around the room at Cairo University and well beyond, and it might have major implications for Egypt and the region that will be played out in the coming years.

And finally, we have an American president who avoided the Pavlovian repetition of how American support for the Egyptian regime is so linked to Egypt’s historic peace with Israel. The way that linkage has played out – that America goes soft of non-democratic tendencies in the Arab world as long as they are pro-Israel – has done a great disservice to the public perception of not only peace but also of America and even Israel.

 

8. More Hand Less Fist on Iran

There was even some encouragement for Obama’s Iran policy in today’s speech. It was beginning to look disturbingly like the Obama administration would be brandishing the stick of sanctions in one hand and the stopwatch of deadlines in the other, thereby leaving no hand free to shake any prospective Iranian unclenched fist.  Obama moved beyond that. Many will point to his acknowledgement of history: “The United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” as being the money line.  It’s true that is a big deal and goes further than what was said in his Norouz message. However, I think this was more important, if not entirely new: “any nation- including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the NPT.”

The president also had this intriguing chestnut to share on nuclear nonproliferation: “I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not.” Now I may be a bit Israelocentric in how I look at the world but this sounds like a not too subtle hint to me. Might this be a kind of “yes – we acknowledge there is a double standard here regarding the Israeli nuclear issue, and eventually we will get to that too.” It won’t be a headline, Israel will officially ignore it, and when asked Obama’s spokespeople will obfuscate but in more than a few capitals, including Jerusalem, a parsing industry will grow up around those few words.

 

9. Giving a Finger to the Purple Finger Theory of Democratization

Obama did it. He reclaimed the democratization agenda by placing it in a broader context as a set of rights and freedoms, and by going on to address religious pluralism, women’s rights, and the challenge of adapting economic development and modernity to traditional values. To be honest, it’s not a particularly difficult one to pull off, but to give him his fair dues, Barack Obama does do it better than anyone else. And there’s something of a new policy here, timely with the Lebanese election elections next week: “…we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.”

The genius was in the pivot. Obama respected Islamic tradition and religious piety, and for instance, a woman’s right to wear the hijab, and he then pivoted that into a broader discussion of the values of female education and women’s rights, placing those things in seamless harmony rather than in contradiction. After an American president who was perceived as doing so much to sow division in the Muslim world, one of Obama’s most powerful lines was undoubtedly, “fault-lines must be closed among Muslims… the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence,” and all this couched in a constant appeal to young people.


10. And He Was Also Speaking to the American Public

After years of fear-mongering, Islamofascist awareness weeks on campuses, and tens of millions of copies of the vile “Obsession” DVD appearing in newspapers and mailboxes, yet another, no less important, reset button was pressed today. The president will no doubt be accused of apologetics and moral relativism, but he decided to face this head-on, to go to Cairo, speak with respect and honesty to the Muslim world, and to do what was best for America’s national security interests.

In so doing, he was also broadcasting a message back home. Most American Muslims will no doubt be feeling a great sense of pride and inspiration from this speech. The rest of America was given a timely and even touching reminder of the contributions that American Muslims have made to this country and that Muslims have given the world in general. Oh, and there might have even been a little message in there upping the ante, for Congress and even for his own party–“I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.”