Obama to Islam: Hey, can we be cool?

Let’s begin with an edition of Ba-ROCK or not.

Ba-ROCK or NOT

Speech to the Middle East

President Obama gave a speech in Cairo today, basically saying “hey, Islam, let’s be friends.”

The White House said Obama’s speech contained no new policy proposals on the Middle East. He said American ties with Israel are unbreakable, yet issued a firm, evenhanded call to the Jewish state and Palestinians alike to live up to their international obligations.

In a gesture to the Islamic world, Obama conceded at the beginning of his remarks that tension “has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”

“And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” said the president, who recalled hearing prayer calls of “azaan” at dawn and dusk while living in Indonesia as a boy.

At the same time, he said the same principle must apply in reverse. “Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”

Hey, this guy...This guy, he might not be so bad, y'know?

From a report from Time:

Still, most Israelis, according to political scientist Eytan Gilboa from Bar-Ilan university in Tel Aviv, will give Obama high marks for his reassurance of an “unbreakable” bond between Israel and the U.S. and for his criticism of those Muslims, such as Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who deny the Holocaust. “But Israelis will need to be convinced that they’ll be living next to a Palestinian state that isn’t Hamastan,” says Gilboa, adding, “It seemed like Iran‘s nuclear issue was low on his priorities, and that’s a main problem not just for Israelis but Arabs too.”….

In the Palestinian territories, Obama’s speech was watched more avidly. Broadcast on Gulf, Egyptian and Jordanian satellite-TV channels, Palestinians in coffee houses and restaurants were riveted by Obama’s words. Fouad, a teacher, says, “I was emotionally moved by Obama’s delivery. I loved his grasp of Islamic history.” A Bethlehem mother, Raheeda Hamad, says she approved of Obama’s message of a global partnership and of the necessity for equal education for women. At Nablus University, political scientist and Islamic scholar Abdul Sattar Qasim says, “His speech was very close to the heart. He has a way of speaking directly to the people, something other leaders have forgotten.” But the scholar also injects a note of criticism: “He spoke of the violence of Hamas but didn’t mention the daily violence that Israeli inflicts on us Palestinians.”

For more on this keynote address, let’s invite an expert to discuss this changing attitude toward and in the Middle East; Mr. Geert Wilders.

“Thank you, Phillip. I’d like to open by saying that President Obama has done a very good job in restraining his inner Muslim and becoming too big an enemy of the non-Muslim world. His efforts to kill the Muslims in Afghanistian and Pakistan are comendable and exactly the type of foregin policy America should have been enacting for centuries.

But this speech is completely a step in the wrong direction.

No good can come from placating the Muslims. Have you ever read that book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? It is very much the bedrock of much of my political philosophy. You see, in the book, you give a mouse a cookie and he wants a glass of milk next. This eventually culminates in him dominating the Earth or something like that. The Muslims are very much like that mouse, except it’s more like this:

If you give the Muslims a Palestinian state, they will destroy us all. It is fairly simple to understand. No amount of pretty speeches will stop the Muslims from eating our flesh and putting burkas on our women. So I find today a sad day, for he is making the mistake of speaking to Muslims like people and everyone with a shred of common sense knows that that is the first step to a global Islam theocracy.”

——

Sounds ridiculous, right?

And yet so many people, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seem to believe that’s the case. If you treat Muslims and Arabs like people, it’ll be the downfall of Western civilization. Please.

Obama’s speech was fairly balanced. I find it kind of annoying that we always have to assert that the bond between the U.S. and Israel is “unbreakable.” It puts us in a vulnerable position if our unbreakable buddy decides to do anything anti-American, like say, bomb civilians. But his rhetoric seems to be doing exactly what I hoped it would when I voted for him…open the door for both sides to regard each other as human beings and work toward peace.

That said, he’s acknowledging the political realities left by the Bush administration, but it’s really unfortunate that we have to defend ourselves as bigots towards Muslims at all. It’s sad that we have to draw a line between America and Muslims. That kind of paints us in a religious light. We shouldn’t really care if someone’s a Muslim or not. So the fact that we had to have this conversatoin in the first place says a lot about the world our foreign policy has helped create up until this point.

So, despite the fact that Obama still seems bound to represent Israeli interests with our military, the speech demonstrates some independence on our part and is convincing thousands of people in the Middle East to actually listen. So, today’s speech earns him a Ba-ROCK!

BBC News video:

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In Other News

The CDC has found that Tourette’s Syndrome is more common in white boys.

Predicted headline for tomorrow: “CDC realizes white boys just tend to swear a lot, watch a lot of South Park.”

In the most recent national tragedy, the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop in Maine has been burned to the ground by some prude (or maybe a perv with a fire fetish).

Krista Macentyre will now be forced to work at topless MacDonald's.

If and when the manager repopens Grand View Topless Coffee, I propose a mass pilgrimage to show our support for coffee entrepeneurs everywhere.

And we’ll leave you with another business idea.