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Obama talks to Muslim world via Arab
chanell: "We made mistakes"
Parmeet Pal Singh
 This
man came with soothing balm in hand, and he lost little time in
applying it. U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken to the Muslim
world, clearly and succintly, and he chose the most appropriate
means of communicating his message -- an Arabic satellite TV
network. This was his first formal television interview as President
and the message was clear to the Muslim world: “Americans are not
your enemy.”
Repair job of relationship is on. And so is a recognition
that it did need the repairs since the relationship has suffered
under the previous administration. Even as his new envoy to the
middle east, former Senator George J. Mitchell, landed in
Egypt on Tuesday
and was headed for Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia, Obama prepared the grounds.
“My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the
Americans are not your enemy,” he told the Saudi-owned, Dubai-based
Al-Arabiya news channel. He said the
U.S. had made
mistakes in the past, but “that the same respect and partnership
that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years
ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that.”
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In the kind of actions that the Sikh nation has stopped even
expecting from Indian rulers, Obama called for a new beginning
“based on mutual respect and mutual interest.” |
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In the kind of actions that the Sikh nation has stopped even
expecting from Indian rulers, Obama called for a new beginning
“based on mutual respect and mutual interest.” The president
recalled his growing up years in
Indonesia, the
Muslim world’s most populous nation, and noted that he has Muslim
relatives. Lesser men may have avoided these references, but Obama
states it plain. He made it clear he wanted to “get engaged right
away” in West Asia.
Mitchell's brief is to to talk to “all the major parties
involved.” Clearly, it seems, President Obama is planning to make
America
first a nation that listens before it talks and acts. Or, as in the
previous few years, dictates. While reiterating
Washington's
commitment to Israel as an ally, Obama suggested that both
Israel
and the Palestinians have hard choices to make.
“I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to
realise that the path that they are on is one that is not going to
result in prosperity and security for their people,” he said.
The Obama-Mitchell two-track choreography aimed at winning
the Arab street, long distrustful of
Washington, made
the message simpler: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate
that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes.
We have not been perfect."
Refereshing talk but clearly Arabs will need more than
eloquent assurances.
The most pressing matter the White House faces is keeping the
situation calm in Gaza after Israel's 22-day incursion, which left
about 1,300 Palestinians dead and widened the divide between U.S.
allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and nations
such as Syria and Iran that condemn the U.S.' close ties to Israel.
28 January 2009
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