Robert Fisk: Words that could heal wounds of centuries

President Obama reaches out to the Islamic world in a landmark speech

Robert Fisk | The Independent/UK, June 5, 2009

AFP/Getty

President Obama’s speach reached out to the Islamic world

• More pictures

Preacher, historian, economist, moralist, schoolteacher, critic, warrior, imam, emperor. Sometimes you even forgot Barack Obama was the President of the United States of America.

Will his lecture to a carefully chosen audience at Cairo University “re-imagine the world” and heal the wounds of centuries between Muslims and Christians? Will it resolve the Arab-Israeli tragedy after more than 60 years? If words could do the job, perhaps…

It was a clever speech we heard from Obama yesterday, as gentle and as ruthless as any audience could wish for – and we were all his audience. He praised Islam. He loved Islam. He admired Islam. He loved Christianity. And he admired America. Did we know that there were seven million Muslims in America, that there were mosques in every state of the Union, that Morocco was the first nation to recognise the United States and that our duty is to fight against stereotypes of Muslims just as Muslims must fight against stereotypes of America?

Related articles

• Decoding the President: what Obama’s words really mean
• David Usborne: President stings Israel with swipe at settlements
• Leading article: Mr Obama makes his case for a historic rapprochement
• In video: US President Barack Obama’s speech at the University of Cairo
• Donald Macintyre: The view from Gaza – ‘This was a speech we are not used to hearing’
• Abdel bari Atwan: Fine words, but the real test is to come

But much of the truth was there, albeit softened to avoid hurting feelings in Israel. To deny the facts of the Jewish Holocaust was “baseless, ignorant and hateful”, he said, a remark obviously aimed at Iran. And Israel deserved security and “Palestinians must abandon violence…”

The United States demanded a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He told the Israelis there had to be a total end to their colonisation in the West Bank. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

Continued >>

Tags: Arab-Israeli conflict, Arab-Isreali, Cairo speech, Israeli settlements, Muslims, President Barack Obama, two-state solution