Richard Cohen: Obama Didn’t Tackle Mideast Anti-Semitism In Cairo Speech
In his column today, Richard Cohen makes a remarkable assertion, seemingly suggesting that in his big speech in Cairo President Obama didn’t directly take on the anti-Semitism that’s alive and well in the Mideast today:
In vast parts of the Islamic world, too many people not only deny the Holocaust but embrace the thinking that made it possible.
In his remarkable speech at Cairo University, President Obama only inferentially mentioned this aspect of what has become an ugly part of the Middle East: a tolerance for and advocacy of old-style anti-Semitism.
By saying Obama only “inferentially” mentioned the Mideast’s old-style anti-Semitism, Cohen presumably means that you had to infer its existence from the speech. But here’s what Obama actually said:
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed — more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction — or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews — is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.
Seems pretty direct: Obama, speaking to an Arab audience, condemned Holocaust-denial, and excoriated the region’s current trafficking in the sort of European anti-Semitism that led to it. I could suggest that some folks are determined to paint Obama as insufficiently hostile to Arabic anti-Semitism no matter what he says, but I don’t want to infer anything.
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great post Greg. Nothing Obama says is enough because the people yelling about the Cairo speech hated the idea to begin with.
MMM… Facts… YUM!(lol)
Well, it’s clearly the case that Obama’s speech did not contain some statement such as, “All of you Egyptians in front of me now and all of you Muslims and Arabs who might hear or read this speech later, we in the Western world have just had it up to here with mid-east anti-Semitism. We have been letting jews into almost all our golf courses for a long time. So shape up and get right, you people.”
heh. Bernie, you should apply for a job as Obama’s speechwriter. and thx lfo.
These bozo’s don’t realize the power of the Googles.
Narrow religious politics demanding passionate adherence from the entire polity isn’t pretty regardless of what part of the religious spectrum it comes from. And, at a certain point, it becomes ridiculous as Bernie’s channeling of Michele Bachmann illustrates very well.
I like that Greg has taken up the role of ombudsman for WaPo since WaPo has had serious disagreements with veracity and reality ever since Hiatt took over and became head cheerleader for all things Iraq invasion and neocon based.
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The columnists at WaPo, Robinson and Dionne excepted of course, read like a rogue’s gallery of “the wrongest white males this side of Crawford”. Gerson? Kristol? Krauthammer? Cohen? Seriously? One of the more amusing aspects about WaPo and Cohen is that he is a clear neocon, but WaPo still considers him a “liberal” for balance purposes.
Ajax the Greater: And they wonder : where have all the readers gone to?
Dude, the day that Cohen knows what he means will be the day that the heavens open an the Little Baby Jesus comes back.
Cohen is batshit insane. He has been since 9-11.
Ah, America’s Worst Pundit. Krauthammer is far more evil, of course, but for sheer blinkered stupidity, Cohen takes the prize. Congrats!
I think perhaps Cohen misses the mark. More appropriate critiques have been along these lines: “While he made strong statements against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, it should have been made clear that Israel’s right to statehood is not a result of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.” And, “An affirmation of “Israel’s historical right to exist,” based on a 2,000-year continuous quest to rebuild a national homeland, is what the region needs to hear from Mr. Obama.”
Note to Cohen et al; Arabs are descendants of Sem.
When you write, “I could suggest that some folks are determined to paint Obama as insufficiently hostile to Arabic anti-Semitism no matter what he says, but I don’t want to infer anything,” you are wrong.
The word is IMPLY. The Speaker IMPLIES, the listener INFERS.
It’s time for Richard Cohen to retire. His columns this year have been ridiculously off the mark, and full of distortions.
Well, it’s not as if Richard Cohen actually thinks before his piddles out his columns. He has a knack for contradicting himself within a few weeks, or even in the same column, but for a long time now his only value has been as a cautionary tale.