Obama's recent speech in Egypt elicited a wide range of reactions. Two of them are discussed here. Both are from Jews but the two views of the speech couldn't be further apart. It gives those of us who are not Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, or Arab a unique view into a world we can only attempt to umderstand.

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Trying to Understand the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

Just how difficult it will be to ever bring peace to the Middle East was made very clear to me today when I had an email exchange with Elliot Gershensen, President and CEO of Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston (IM), about President Obama’s recent speech in Egypt. 

It’s not that he and I disagree, in fact, we share very similar views about Obama, Israel and Palestine.  Among other things, Mr. Gershensen oversees a massive Meals-On-Wheels program and a new but fast growing annual interfaith dinner dialogue.  After receiving IM’s weekly newsletter I sent him an email praising his insightful critique of Obama’s recent speech in Egypt and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I also asked him if I could reprint it for the newspapers.  He obliged but also sent me another review of Obama’s speech to “balance” his.  This one was by Anne Bayefsky of the Jewish World Review, a conservative web site who contributors include such ultra-conservatives as Anne Coulter and Michelle Malkin.  Ms. Bayefsky is both a human rights activist and Zionist.  Both analyses were from very well educated leaders within the Jewish community, and yet they could not have been at further ends of the spectrum. 

Mr. Gershensen wrote the following:

“President Obama throughout his measured speech touched on the major issues facing the Arab and Muslim world. His goal, as I read him, was not to preach nor condescend.  But he did not waver in stating truths as he saw them. 

“…The skeptics are fearful that these are naïve words and will provide opportunities for those who have evil designs on America to exploit what is perceived as weakness.  President Obama has laid out the hopes for a better future.  The challenges have never been greater and Obama is taking a great gamble.  He is saying that it is possible for our country to wield its power and influence in more collaborative ways, not just militarily. Let's hope he is right.

“There are those who think he will sell out Israel, while there are others in the Arab world and elsewhere who feel that his words are just words - nice, but with no teeth.

“But he challenges each of us to look inward and to find the courage to chart a new course.  A course with many contours and dangers, but a course (which), if successful...will lead to new possibilities.

“I am both fearful and heartened.  Fearful that we humans are not capable of seeing the "other" as worthy of our respect and care.  Heartened that we are being confronted with the brutal truth that we can not continue to hide from the damage done by our own fears and ignorance.

“We are living in unprecedented times.  It will take extraordinary wisdom and luck to traverse this landscape unscathed.  But perhaps, if we have the courage, just maybe Amazing things will happen if we have Faith in one another.”

Elliot

On the other hand, here is Ms. Bayefsky’s analysis, significantly shortened for this piece.

“President Obama's Cairo speech was nothing short of an earthquake — a distortion of history, an insult to the Jewish people, and an abandonment of very real human-rights victims in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is not surprising that Arabs and Muslims in a position to speak were enthusiastic. It is more surprising that American commentators are praising the speech for its political craftiness, rather than decrying its treachery of historic proportions.

Obama equated the Holocaust to Palestinian "dislocation." In his words: "The Jewish people were persecuted. …anti-Semitism …culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust…. Six million Jews were killed…. On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland." This parallelism amounts to the fictitious Arab narrative that the deliberate mass murder of six million Jews for the crime of being Jewish is analogous to a Jewish-driven violation of Palestinian rights. “

“…President Obama's meticulously planned and executed Egyptian speech marks the lowest point in the U.S. presidency's understanding and appreciation of the Jewish state, its history, and its people's future.”

Anne Bayefsky

After reading Anne's analysis, I replied back to Elliot that I felt it was a reaction of a paranoid right winger suffering from a persecution complex.  To me Obama merely stated that it was undeniable that Palestinians had suffered, not that their plight was equal to that of the Holocaust.  As any talented speaker should do he tailored his speech to his audience.  But I believe he did it without sacrificing the truth.  

Elliot then responded with this:

“John, I don’t disagree with you.  Sometimes, it pays to be paranoid.  And when someone tells you over and over that they want to kill you, you should listen. 

One more thing, John, please remember that everything we think we understand comes from the mental models that make up our world.  I am a paranoid Jew (sometimes) because 11 of my grandmother’s 13 siblings were killed in the Holocaust.   No one believed that Hitler really meant what he said – or inferred before he actually said what he planned to do.  My children don’t have the visceral memory that I do – and the pain that my grandmother felt every day of her life after the Holocaust. 

It is important to keep all pieces of this, including the suffering of the Palestinians, in perspective.

My prayer is that President Obama does not have a Machiavellian plan in mind – one that really will sell Israel down the drain.  I don’t believe that – but I will be vigilant in my assessments.

Elliot

Those of us who have no frame of reference for matters like the Holocaust or Palestinian displacement just can't relate.  Yet we all have a huge stake in this conflict.  There will never be peace for the U.S. until there is peace in the Holy Land.  We can only try to understand and I am sooooo trying to understand how supposed people of faith can speak and act in such hateful and violent ways and even use their faith to justify it.  But I just can’t seem to get there.

My perspective on these dichotomal essays comes from my middle class, white, American place in society.  I see both Obama’s speech and Mr. Gershensen’s analysis as thoughtful, insightful, and balanced.  I see Ms. Bayefsky’s views as coming from a perspective that is suspicious and skeptical at best, hateful and vengeful at worst, leading to an uncompromising position that negates the possibility of coming to any peace conference with an open mind.

Perhaps I can sum this up with this simple quote from an unknown source: “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”  Unfortunately, realizing that will not bring us peace either.

Authors Bio:

A graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo with an MBA in 1980, John went into the banking business from 1981-1991. John went into the gymnastics business with his wife, with whom he has two children, in 1992 and grew it enough by 1995 that he could quit conventional employment. He became politically active after his divorce in 2004 becoming a news reporter and talk show host for KPFT, a Pacifica station, in Houston. He has since been involved with the peace movement in many ways and continues to promote progressive interests. John now volunteers in his neighborhood Civic Association and the local homeless center.