Obama shakes hands with Raul Castro
At the Mandela funeral in South Africa on Tuesday, President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro.Let's go to the videotape.
As you saw in the video above, the CNN broadcasters can't stop gushing over Obama (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
It was a moment of high symbolism. More than 50 years after the Cuban Revolution, the United States and Cuba still do not have diplomatic relations. The President has eased some of the economic embargo and travel restrictions that the administration of President George W. Bush strongly enforced, but relations still are tense. Cuba continues to imprison an American citizen, Alan Gross, who was arrested in 2009 on charges of attempting to destabilize the Cuban government.
Obama knew, of course, that Castro would be on stage. But refusing to shake Castro's hand would not have been in keeping with Mandela's legacy of reconciliation. And it was not the first handshake between American-Cuban leaders. In 2000, at the United Nations, then-President Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, its first revolutionary president, and Raul's brother.
Obama says he wants to improve relations with Cuba, but disagreements over human rights violations and other issues continue to keep the countries apart.
The handshake came before Obama's speech, in which he made remarks about reconciliation.Somehow, I think Ronald Reagan would have avoided that handshake. And somehow, if Netanyahu or Peres had shown up, I can think of a lot of 'world leaders' who would have avoided shaking their hands.
How many of you recall this avoided handshake from 2008?
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Cuba, Ehud K. Olmert, Fidel Castro, Hosni Mubarak, Ronald Reagan, South Africa
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:58 PM
3 Comments:
He shook hands with Mugabe as well.
Old 'Comrades In Arms'
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6IUky9fgGNo/Uqdk-8lgkZI/AAAAAAABB-c/gU2tHYYKN-I/s1600/buddies+(2).png
Michael J. Totten is doing some great reporting about his recent visit to Cuba. In connection to this handshake I'd encourage you to link to his work to remind people just what kind of regime Obama and the media want to warm up to.
(And, it paints a good picture of the "glorious future" Obama and his ilk seem to aspire to in the US...)
Oh...haShem, what do you have in store for us?
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