Opposition parties cautiously welcomed US President Barack Obama's speech. Now, they say, the rhetoric must be turned into practical policies, reports Gamal Essam El-Din US President Barack Obama's 4 June speech at Cairo University struck a chord with most secular opposition parties, with the majority saying it could usher in an era of better understanding between America and the Muslim world. They were particularly pleased with Obama's pledge to offer more scholarships to Muslims and launch a fund to support technological development. Opposition and independent MPs did, however, have reservations, insisting that real judgement must be deferred until it becomes clear how much, or how little, US actions on the ground change. The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood was the most critical of Obama's speech. After two days of silence it issued a statement on Saturday describing the speech as an attempt to play upon the feelings and sympathies of Muslims. "Obama is following the path of his predecessors, emphasising that America's relationship with the Zionist enemy is unbreakable and comes at the expense of Palestinian resistance," read the statement. It added that "Obama's speech focussed on the Jewish Holocaust, ignoring any talk about Israeli crimes and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people... He used emotive words to win the hearts of Muslims but such words will never secure justice or recover the rights of Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or any of the Muslim countries in which the blood of Muslims is flowing by day and night because of the conspiracies of US administrations". The statement went on to describe Obama's words about democracy as "brief and simplistic". "They come at a time when the US administration turns a blind eye to the practices of autocratic and corrupt regimes which suppress their populations." "In general," the statement concluded, "Obama's speech was a public relations exercise aimed at improving the image of America after long years of it being stained with the blood of Muslims and Arabs." Some leading members of the Brotherhood, however, seemed to differ with the group's official assessment. In an interview with a British newspaper Essam El-Erian, a senior Brotherhood leader, argued Obama's speech had two main objectives: to improve America's image and to isolate Al-Qaeda. "I think he has succeeded by 70 to 80 per cent. But if he doesn't follow up with action it will be a disaster," said El-Erian. The liberal-oriented Wafd Party expressed cautious enthusiasm about the speech. Wafd leader Mahmoud Abaza told Al- Ahram Weekly that "the speech could open a new chapter in US-Muslim relations". "We now have a man who showed great interest in resolving the Arab- Israeli conflict from his first days in power," said Abaza. He added that Obama struck a special chord when he emphasised that "the US does not recognise the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" on occupied Palestinian land and when he called on Israel to improve the daily lives of Palestinians. Nor does Abaza agree that Obama's words about democracy in the Arab world were hypocritical. "It is good enough for Obama to clearly state that he is not in favour of any nation imposing its model of governance on another," he said, adding that while "Wafd stands for liberal democracy and social justice it also believes America should stop lecturing others about democracy as it did during the Bush era years." Abaza wholeheartedly welcomed Obama's words about economic development, gender equality and religious freedom. "We hope that the US, as a superpower, will use its huge capital to push these ideals forward," he said. Leftist forces -- Nasserists, nationalists and pan-Arabists -- tended to argue that Obama's message to the Muslim world, certainly as regards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, expressed little substantive change from the policies of his predecessor. Abdallah El-Sinnawi, editor of Al-Arabi, the mouthpiece of the Arab Nasserist Party, argued the speech was a continuation of the "double standards" Washington has long applied to the region. "Obama produced some vague words about the rights and sufferings of Palestinians but he was quite clear that America's relationship with Israel is unbreakable." Given that the Arab-Israeli conflict came second to violent extremism in Obama's speech "the only conclusion you can draw," says El-Sinnawi, is "that Arab-Israeli peace is not a priority for US foreign policy and at the very least comes conditional on fighting violent extremism". "All Obama said about the Middle East was to a pledge that he would 'personally pursue' a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." "Bush also said he was in favour of a two-state solution and it turned out to be a deception. And now we will see a new deception. Double-standards will continue to govern US policy in the Middle East as long as Israel has a strong lobby in America." Gamal Zahran, a nationalist MP and a professor of economics and political science, agrees. "Double standards will remain the backbone of American foreign policy in the Middle East. What Obama is engaged in is a public relations exercise." The fact is, says Zahran, "Obama's speech was aimed mainly to link progress in the settlement of the Middle East conflict with normalisation of relations between the Arabs and Israelis". That, Zahran argues, was the main thrust of the speech, though a major subtext was "to win over Muslims against the regime in Iran". "He used a lot of rhetoric and sweet words in a bid to court Iranians against Ahmadinejad ahead of presidential elections next week," said Zahran.
