It’s safe to say that much of the Jewish world has been on edge, anticipating Obama’s Cairo speech today. Would he speak honestly, in this proud Muslim capital, a place where the founder of Islamic radicalism earned a degree in education 75 years ago, about Jewish concerns?
The New York Times web site is currently running this quote from Obama, as its first take, below the headline (“Obama Calls for Alliance With Muslims“), but above a photo of Obama:
“Anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust … Six million Jews were killed … Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful.”
He said this, with the entire Muslim world watching, a speech that, according to the Times, is available through White House-sponsored Web sites in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, and is being translated by the State Department into 13 languages. It’s Obama’s hallmark: Honesty; unflinching truth — even-handed — even if — especially if — that truth is uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unappreciated by his audience.
Here is Obama’s full quote — it comes relatively early on in his speech – about the Holocaust:
“Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.”
At a time when the Iranian president, and much of the Arab world, denies the basic truth of the Holocaust – in a speech designed mainly to reach out to that world — these words take on out-sized importance.
Obama said many things today — and I hope to post again shortly — but one of them is this: Turn the page on hate by turning the page on the lies and canards that feed it.
It’s a speech for the Muslim world, but a message that will resonate throughout the Jewish world, too.
(Crossposted on National Jewish Democratic Council’s blog.)
Tags: Holocaust, Muslim World
While I applaud what the president said about the Holocaust, the more I think about the speech, the more it disturbs me that he made an explicit link between Jewish suffering and Jewish statehood. Here’s the quote:
“America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries…”
He seems to be saying that because of the Jews’ tragic history, they deserve a state. And while the Holocaust was certainly A reason for the entire world to agree to a Jewish state (one of the last good things the United Nations ever did) it is certainly not the ONLY reason. The danger here is that the Arab world has a narrative about Israel that goes like this: because of the Holocaust, the Palestinians have to suffer. The mad man in Iran refers to this narrative often and I saw it today from “man on the street” interviews after the speech.
What’s the real story? Jewish statehood is a right. If there is any nation on earth that has a right to a piece of land, it is the Jewish people. Show me one other nation with a written document 3,000 years old that describes their deed to a piece of land. And that’s not even taking into account the modern interpretation of statehood, which is that every nation has a right to self-determination.
Obama’s speech had many fine points and it could be that this section was just not clearly articulated. Maybe he does believe in Israel’s right to the land, even without accounting for Jewish suffering.
Gerald,
I think this is an excellent point.
There’s a fantastic piece in the May issue of the journal Shma by Meir Litvak, “The Holocaust in Arab & Muslim Discourse.”
He writes: “The dominant Arab and Msulim view argues that the Arabs — though they had no direct conncetion or interest in World War II, bear the brunt of it with the loss of Palestine. For much of the Arab world, the immediate context of the Holocaust … is the establishment of the state of Israel in the midst of the Arab world and Israel’s efforts to gain legitimacy. The proximity of events … led to their convergence and the creation of ‘causality relationships’ between them. …
“Even Arab and Muslim intellectuals, who assailed Nazism, did not admit or denounce the Nazi genocide against the Jews; rather, they charged that Zionism used the Holocaust or invented it as a means of financial and pscyhological extortion. Moreover, the Palestinians are often represented as the Holocaust’s true victims. Consequently, an Arab discourse on the Holocaust has emerged that encompasses various attitudes — some inspired by Western thinking– which range from justifciation of the Holocaust, through charges of Zionist-Nazi collaboration in the extermination of the Jews, to Holocaust denial, to denial and projection of Nazi images on Zionism and Israel, who are thus transformed from victims to culprits. This reservoir does not represent a specific intellectual trend or a geographical origin, but rather serves Islamists, nationalists, and leftists who draw elements from it, almost indiscriminately, and incorporate them into their discourse.”
I think this historical context is very important — and I thank you, G, for raising it.
I believe that Obama believes, like you do, that Jewish statehood is a right. Today is not the first time he spoke of the need for a Jewish homeland. I agree that it’s unfortunate — given this Muslim narrative — that he said the Jewish homeland is “rooted in a tragic history.” It’s also rooted in proud Biblical history, in law, in United Nations resolutions, in blood, and in fact. I hope that in the future — on this trip if possible — Obama recognizes such.
-ND
I would only add that the Mufti of Jerusalem, the leader of the Palestinian people, Haj Amin al-Husseini, spent the World War II in Berlin as an advocate for Hitler. He made sure that European Jews wouldn’t enter pre-state Israel and recruited Bosnian Muslims for the SS.
Just one other thing: I was just watching McNeil-Lehrer (sorry, I’m old) because I was looking for a thoughtful, reasoned analysis on the Obama speech. So I got four Arab intellectuals and journalists, who were all very well-spoken and respectable. However, what pervaded the conversation was this idea that Obama had not gone far enough in his criticism of Israel and the pressure he plans to place on Israel. This was summed up at the end, when the very reasonable PBS host (sorry, can’t remember her name) turned to an al-Jazeera reporter and asked what the Palestinians and Arabs need to do now that Obama has laid out his vision for the Middle East. He said, essentially, wait til the Obama administration places MORE pressure on Israel. All the familiar tropes: the violence, the oppression, the occupation as if the Palestinians and the Arabs have played NO role whatsoever in creating, nurturing and belaboring this conflict. And that’s the most frustrating thing, that as far as Israel will go (and it’s my view that they’ve already offered a substantial amount in previous peace talks) it will never be enough. It will never be enough because the supposed victim in this conflict (the Palestinian people and the Arab world) are blameless and therefore entitled to all rights and rewards. If the Arab world doesn’t believe it has to meet Israel half-way, there will never be peace.
G–
Again — I couldn’t agree more. People on both sides of this divide — Arab and Jew — need to pay attention to the Obama’s words. He is pushing BOTH sides to do more. (Actually, people on all three sides to this triangle: Jews, Arabs, and the Muslim world. See my most recent post, Obama Cairo Speech: Take Two.) If the Palestinians, and leaders of the Arab world, think they can just sit and wait for Obama to pressure to Israel — as Abbas apparently told the Washington Post in his recent interview — I think they will ultimately be disappointed.
Keep in mind: there is a strong current on the Jewish side, too, that Obama didn’t go far enough today: The ADL castigated him for not taking a harder line on Iranian nukes; the Republican Jewish Committee did same for what it called Obama’s “moral equivalence.” Some did not like the proximity of Obama’s remarks about the Holocaust, to his remarks about Palestinian suffering — as if he were equating the two.
A speech like this — with all the expectations — is absolutely guaranteed not to satisfy everyone on both sides. If it did, in my view, it would have failed at its most basic goal — of starting a more honest dialogue.
-ND
Hi Guys,
I responded to a follow up of this thread in the Lebanaon discussion. I think, though, that I disagree with Gerald’s initial point. Our 3000 year old deed offers us no legitimacy today. The world has changed and the reality is that statehood is a political existence, not a religious one. There is no reason that anyone other than a Jew ought to view that 3000 y.o. deed as legitimate. And The Eurpoeans expanded to North America and Africa much more recently, does that meant that native peoples of those lands are entitled to have it all back? Any call for exceptionalism based on the Old Testament strikes me as baised in a way I would not except if it cmae form otheres, so I can’t accept it from my people either. Not in a plurlaistic world.
The political imperative for Israel is rooted both in the Holocaust and in generations of antisemitism, both of which were identified in Obama’s speech. The religious imperative is our business and makes this particular land of great importance to us and our people but we cannot confuse that with legitimacy to others who do not accept our religion. The world is not fair and political boundaries are rarely fully legitimate.
Loyal
Loyal,
I totally agree with you that anti-Semitism and the Holocaust are part of the rationale for Israel. (Though I still think there’s a danger in OBama promulgating that — since it feeds into the Palestinian victimization narrative.) I feel the same way you do that a 3,000-year old deed does not convey legitimacy today, but I think Gerald’s making a broader point: that Israel is a nation — we have been since Biblical times — and that history also confers legitimacy today, in the land that Jews now govern. Rember, the Balfour Declaration — “His majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” — predated the Hitler’s rise to power by 15 years. (Though of course, it did not predate pogroms or anti-Semitism.) The point is, there is a historical/culture — and, yes, religious — claim — that confers legitimacy, as well. Otherwise, we could have done this in Uganda.
–ND
Loyal,
Thanks for your post.
It’s hard to compare the Jewish/Israel case with others because there aren’t any. What other nation has returned to its homeland after 2,000 years? I don’t know how to argue your point that our religious connection to the land does not confer legitimacy to settle that land. I think its intrinsic — in fact, I think it’s more important than any modern political notion. Who would argue that Saudi Arabia has the right to rule Medina because of the state’s religious attachment and obligation to that city? Why even question a people’s right to a piece of land that they believe God gave to them?
And I completely agree with your last sentence: “The world is not fair and political boundaries are rarely fully legitimate.” That’s exactly why the Arab world should recognize the de facto boundaries of the Jewish state and move on. Are those boundaries ideal for Israel? Absolutely not, but they’ve offered to give up their “biblical heartland” for peace. What have the Arabs offered in return?
thoughtful crowd. i don’t intend to argue against pragmatic boundaries that integrate history religion and realpolitik. rather i believe that the practical origins of the modern state of israel is deeply rooted in both antisemitism and the holocaust. and nuance is critical and details matter so let’s not fear any one else’s narrative. instead let’s respond honestly and critically acknowledge both similarities and differences.
loyal
G,
I agree that religious attachment is a legitimate part of the case for Israel. The problem I have with religious attachment is where it becomes fundamentalist, and completely anathema to even the suggestion of compromise or flexibility. Political, cultural, and legal attachments are rarely that way.
-ND