JEDDAH: Local reactions to US President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo yesterday were mostly positive, with a few expressing reservations over whether the president’s eloquent words would result in actions — especially pertaining to Palestinian sovereignty and the statehood.
“In all of Obama’s seven-part speech, the part about the Palestinian issues was his weakest point,” said Yasser Darwish, a Palestinian supervisor at food processing company in Jeddah. “He did not necessarily say anything new other than mentioning that the current Israeli settlement activity has to stop.”
Darwish added that Obama’s statements in support of Israel seem to him to have the same tone as previous presidents who made statements in support of Palestinian statehood while their administrations actively supported Israel’s strategies for preventing this autonomy.
Najeeb Adel, an Egyptian pharmacist in Jeddah, was more optimistic, calling Obama’s statements “honest.” “Especially the parts when he talked about spreading the culture of forgiveness, and the part about minority rights, especially the rights of Christian minorities in Lebanon and in Egypt.”
Adel said he doesn’t recall a US president ever publicly addressing the Coptic minority in Egypt or the Maronites of Lebanon.
Jeddah-based Jordanian architect Mustafa Abu Himdah called Obama “sincere and honest.”
“He wants to reach out to Muslims and start a new page based on tolerance and cooperation and living together. It was in a way surprisingly a new attitude,” he added.
Aish Hazazi, a Yemeni teacher, said it was novel to hear a speech like this from a US president. “He talked about hijab and women’s rights and talked how it is ingrained in our Islamic tradition,” said Hazazi.
“He talked about giving women the freedom to choose the way they dress or whether they want to live in traditional ways. These are all good points that I have never heard from any other US president.”
