Obama raps Israel, Palestinians equally for Middle East stalemate

DEBKAfile Report

June 7, 2009, 11:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

US president Barack Obama stressed the need for mutual respect and tolerance among the world's faiths, denigrated al Qaeda and extremism, said the US "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," will respect all elected peaceful governments provided they respect their peoples, and called for universal human and women's rights to be upheld. His much awaited speech to more than a billion Muslims which quoted extensively from the Koran, but also the Bible and the Talmud, won cheers from the selected 3,000 strong audience in Cairo University's Great Hall Thursday, June 4.

Along with a declaration that US bonds with Israel are unbreakable, President Obama demanded that Israel and the Palestinians uphold their obligations to the roadmap. "America will align its policies with those who seek peace – Israelis, Palestinians or Arabs," he declared and promised to personally pursue the goal of peace and security for breaking the Israel-Palestinian stalemate. Palestinians must be allowed to live a normal life in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he said, but they must abandon violence.

Rockets on sleeping children or bombs killing old people on a bus are intolerable, but the US does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements and Israel must recognize the Palestinian right to the dignity of a state of their own but so must the Arab world recognize Israel.

It should not exploit the Middle East conflict to distract their peoples from their problems. Privately, he said,, many Arabs recognize that Israel will not go away, just as many Israelis recognize the Palestinians right to a state. America will align its policies those who seek peace, Israelis, Palestinians or Arabs. "Jerusalem must be the lasting home for all faiths, all the children of Abraham."

Obama began his speech by saying: "I have come to Cairo to seek a new beginning of mutual respect between America and Muslims: Salaam Aleikum." America and Islam are not mutually exclusive; they share common principles." Muslims have enriched America in many fields.

But no one should tolerate al Qaeda which killed members of all faiths, most of all Muslims, Obama stressed. America went to war to pursue al Qaeda after it ruthlessly murdered more than 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11. The United States is not fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but extremists who violate the Koranic injunction against killing innocents. US troops will be out of Iraq by 2012, he pledged.

He spoke frankly about the state of democracy, human and women's rights and education, with obvious implications for Muslim nations and governments.

From Egypt, the US president flies to Europe for two days during which he will visit Dresden and pay his respects at the site of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. From Germany he travels to Normandy to attend D-Day anniversary ceremonies.