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Arab World Waits to Hear From Obama: President's View on Israel, Palestinians to be Paramount
When President Barack Obama steps to the podium Thursday in Cairo to propose a new American partnership with the Muslim world, Arabs across the region will be waiting to hear what he has to say about Israel — as much as what he has to say about Islam.
Although the White House says that Obama won’t unveil detailed policy plans, expectations are running high after eight years of often-antagonistic relations between the region’s leaders and the Bush administration.
And it seems everyone wants to hear something.
Critics of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic rule expect Obama to champion democratic reforms in Egypt.
Iraqi leaders will be listening for assurances that Obama will follow through on his pledge to withdraw U.S. troops from their country.
Pro-western Middle East politicians want him to challenge Iran aggressively.
U.S. rivals from Iran to Syria will be watching to see how conciliatory he’ll be with his evolving diplomatic plans.
However, agreement is widespread that what Obama says about Israel and the Palestinians will be paramount.
“You have to give them hope that the United States will stop its bias towards the Israeli side,” said Emad Gad, a senior analyst at Cairo’s government-run Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “If President Obama puts the Palestinian issue on the real road to a settlement, then I think the atmosphere in the region will change, because this is the main reason that Islamic fundamentalists can recruit.”
Expectations of Israel
If Obama hopes to transform the United States’ image in the Middle East, Arab politicians and analysts and U.S. adversaries are expecting him to say clearly that Israel must make tough concessions.
In a decisive break with the Bush administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explicitly has rejected Israelis’ arguments that they’re allowed to continue building in existing settlements under the U.S.-backed and Israeli-endorsed so-called road map for peace in the region.
The Obama administration’s stand is at odds with Israel’s center-right government, which signaled Thursday that construction will continue.
Arab and Muslim leaders will be watching for decisive steps if Israel refuses to accede to the pressure.
One idea that’s gaining new credence is a regional plan that would offer Israel peace with its Arab rivals in exchange for the establishment of an independent Palestinian nation.
Obama has made it clear that he wants dramatic concessions from the Arab world as well.
One of the biggest hurdles is a long-standing demand that Palestinian refugees who fled their homes in what’s now Israel be allowed to return. Israeli leaders oppose that idea, which they see as tantamount to the end of Israel as a predominantly Jewish nation.
While animosity toward the United States has waned in the Arab world since Obama took office, the recently released Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey found that more than three-quarters of the respondents across the region still viewed the United States negatively.
However, a small majority of those polled were optimistic that U.S.-Middle East policy is on the right track, giving Obama the opening he needs.
Obama must temper expectations that he can achieve a Middle East miracle, said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Center in Beirut.
“He has to be realistic and not promise too much, because that will backfire, and people will then find him not credible,” Salem said. “It’s a difficult balancing act.”
Dion Nissenbaum
McClatchy Newspapers