Rasha Saad underlines Obama's fine but empty words US President Barack Obama's speech addressing the Middle East was, according to many, eloquent yet void of content. In the London-based daily Al-Hayat, Mustafa Zein wrote that in his speech the US president "launched his electoral campaign for the year 2012, making use of the eloquence well known of him on such occasions". In 'Obama the rebel presents his electoral statement', Zein wrote that in his speech, Obama tried to win over the revolutionaries in Egypt and Tunisia, promising the new governments a great deal of support "in order to help them deal with the many crises produced by the tyrants who have fallen." Zein, however, argued that this support aims at "keep [ing] their successors under Washington's wing, owing to its support their remaining in the seat of power, implementing American programmes in the economy, politics and in democracy, and increasingly tying their interests to those of Washington, exactly as it was in the past." Zein stated that the image conveyed by former Egyptian president Anwar El-Sadat, and after him Hosni Mubarak, was that US aid would save Egypt. "But instead it drowned it in economic chaos it has not known in its entire history," Zein maintained. Also in Al-Hayat, Abdullah Iskandar wrote that in his speech President Obama may have gone further than any other US president in specifying the borders of the Palestinian state. In 'Obama: the 1967 borders in support of Israel' Iskandar argued that if it is well known that such a state should be established on the basis of international legitimacy and UN resolutions, it necessarily should be established on the territories occupied during the 1967 war. "Yet specifying these borders in the US president's speech on Middle East affairs reflects the administration's vision of the nature of a permanent solution. This is also the first time the administration clearly specifies that this vision it holds should lead to establishing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with some land swaps that would be subject to negotiations," Iskandar wrote. Iskandar also pointed out that in Obama's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House, the aspects of weakness inherent in this vision became clear. Iskandar clarified that this is not just because Netanyahu absolutely rejects those borders and a permanent solution, "but because Obama himself has become a lame duck with the start of his electoral campaign." According to Iskandar, Obama will not be able, whatsoever and regardless of his intentions, to promote such a vision in the United States and with those funding his campaign, especially within the Israeli lobby. "In this sense, Obama's stances on the changes taking place in the Arab world represent a form of cover for maintaining stances of political support for Israel, not a serious effort to find a sustainable permanent settlement in the Middle East," Iskandar concludes. In the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, Hussein Shobokshi described Obama's speech as "expectedly disappointing". Shobokshi wrote that though the speech appeared to side with the people and their freedom, it did so in calculated measure. "Once again, the US approach to the Middle East has fallen into the trap of the double standard policy. It is totally unacceptable to have free and dignified peoples who are worthy of support on the one hand, and regimes which are destroying their own citizens with weaponry on the other, and then grant such regimes more time to reform," Shobokshi wrote. It is impossible, according to Shobokshi, to ignore the large contradiction with regards to the Palestinian cause, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Shobokshi pointed out that as soon as President Obama ended his speech, the Israelis objected, refusing to return to the 1967 borders and recognise a Palestinian state. And also, Israel preceded Obama's speech by declaring its biggest ever settlement project in East Jerusalem, as usual disregarding all international reservations, objections and resolutions forbidding such an act. To further frustrate the Arabs, Shobokshi added, Obama laid down a new "insuperable" condition: the necessity of the Palestinians recognising the Jewish state of Israel. "In essence, this would mean that all Arabs living in Israel would either be deported or officially classified as second class citizens," Shobokshi wrote. "Obama's speech was frustrating and void of the content it required in order to establish a serious, supportive, comprehensive, and sustained US policy that applies to everyone," Shobokshi argued. "Obama had a historic opportunity to build bridges of confidence with the Arabs, but he chose to follow the lines of his predecessors, with only some changes in the terminology used. Blood is being spilled, lives are being lost, yet more time and opportunities are still being given to tyrannical powers in both the Arab world and Israel," Shobokshi wrote. In the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Abdel-Bari Atwan wrote that the big resemblance between the US president and the majority of Arab leaders is not only that they both give long speeches but most importantly they both give speeches that are eloquent but void of new stances. Atwan wrote that President Obama's speech was full of promises which support reform and the economy of the new democratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. But the question, according to Atwan, is how to change words into deeds. "I am sceptical because we heard similar promises nearly two years ago in his first speech in the university of Cairo where he promised us, and also in an eloquent way, a new US foreign policy based on justice and ethics, building strong relations with the Islamic world, total commitment to solving the Palestinian issue on the basis of a two-state solution and a total halt to building Israeli settlements. What were the results? A total withdrawal of all these promises, adopting all Israeli dictates and a failure in persuading his Israeli allies to freeze building settlements save for only two months," Atwan wrote. In its editorial, the UAE's Al-Bayan commented on President Obama's speech addressing AIPAC on Sunday. It described it as a retraction on his promises concerning Palestinian rights drawn up during his earlier speech on Thursday where he drew a vision on ending the Arab- Israeli conflict, specifically reaching an Israeli-Palestinian settlement and the declaration of an independent Palestinian state. "We do not understand the reasons behind this great influence of the Zionist lobby in the US that makes the president of the world's No 1 super power take back what he said," the editorial wrote. "Whatever the reasons were, this influence has to be examined. The Arabs have to point out reasons for their failure to pressure the US administration.
