Israel Matzav

Obama's conciliatory address

Writing at the American Thinker, Andrew Bostom suggests that instead of speaking first in a Muslim country, newly elected President Obama should speak at the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island (Hat Tip: Power Line).

Following a visit to Newport, RI in August, 1790, and his warm reception by the local Jewish community, represented in a letter by Moses Seixas, George Washington wrote a moving reply to Touro's congregation. Our first President rejected the idea of mere "tolerance" of Jews, embracing them as full, equal citizens of the nascent American nation, with complete freedom of conscience, and the guarantee of their personal security. Washington stated,

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

Contemporary American Jewry has expressed with even greater intensity the "fervent wishes" for President Obama's "felicity," as their forebears did in praise of President George Washington. Will President Obama exhibit George Washington's moral clarity and reassure contemporary Jews he is committed to their liberty and security, which is now gravely threatened by global jihadism?

Mr. Obama, before your planned speech in a Muslim capital, I urge you to address the world's Jewish community, and condemn the jihad-inspired antisemitic violence fomented by esteemed Islamic religious institutions, including notably, Cairo's Al Azhar University. And I can suggest the ideal venue-redolent with American history-where you should make this statement: Touro, America's first Jewish synagogue, located in Newport, in my beloved home state of Rhode Island.

While I'm sympathetic to Bostom's idea of having President Obama, who has gone out of his way to reconcile with Muslims and has totally ignored American Jews, speak first at a meaningful Jewish location, what Obama says is more important than where he says it. Bostom has some great ideas about what Obama - who has expressed his desire to make a major address in a Muslim country - ought to say.

On the one hand, the fact that Cairo, Egypt is being touted as a potential location for this conciliatory address highlights Mr. Obama's willful blindness to the pandemic of jihadism, intimately conjoined to annihilationist Islamic Jew-hatred, afflicting Muslim communities globally, including those within Europe, Canada, and the United States. Yet Cairo is also a very appropriate potential venue for Mr. Obama's pending speech. The capital of Egypt, the world's most populous Arab Muslim nation, Cairo's 1000 year old Al Azhar University (and its mosque) represents the pinnacle of Islamic religious education. Egypt also receives nearly $2 billion US aid per annum. Such American largesse, one could reasonably argue, should provide Mr. Obama persuasive leverage over our erstwhile Muslim ally -- for example, demanding, under threat of withdrawing this aid, that Egypt actively seek out and destroy the smuggling tunnels through which flow rockets and other munitions from the Sinai peninsula into Gaza, to be fired by Hamas (and its allied) jihadists upon civilian population centers in southern Israel.

But apart from diplomatic threats -- which can be made privately, Mr. Obama should demonstrate courageous moral leadership in his public address, demanding an end to the declarations of Jew-hatred, and even calls for jihad genocide against the Jews, issued regularly by Egyptian clerics, including authoritative Islamic religious leaders at the renowned Al Azhar University.

I'd be more than happy to have Obama make a major address in Cairo if it covers the points that Bostom enumerates. Read the whole thing. Unfortunately, the odds of President Hopenchange saying anything that would so offend his Egyptian hosts is somewhere between slim and none.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:11 PM