Obama are you with us?

On the one hand, it is often best if the United States, Russia, England, France, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Mongolians, and all other outside forces stay out of Iranian politics. I have maintained that fairly consistently over the years. But I started thinking about things today after watching this video:

Today in the streets of Tehran, on the anniversary of the taking of the American Embassy in Tehran (now 30 years ago) the Green Wave chanted on the streets “Obama! Obama! You are with them or you are with us.”

Might Obama, now that he is a Nobel Peace Laureate, be seen more than just the President of the United States, but a symbol for the aspirations of all the oppressed? Might it be that the President is in a unique position to do something more than voice gentle opinions?

I honestly don’t know, but would love to hear what you all think out there on the interwebs.

Ha’aretz Editor Writes Op-ed in NYTimes Criticizing Obama

Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief editor-at-large of Ha’aretz has written an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “Why Won’t Obama Talk to Israel?”

The general position of the op-ed can be summed up from one line in the piece: “The Arabs got the Cairo speech; we got silence.”

Well, not exactly Mr. Benn. Israel continues to get something like three-billion dollars in military aid every year, while Gaza still smolders in ruins. That isn’t too bad of a deal on your end now is it?

You can read the whole op-ed here.

(hat tip NEF)

Do Muslims Worship a Separate God? President Obama implies “yes.”

President Barack Obama delivered an inspiring speech yesterday to the NAACP at a celebration marking the civil rights group’s 100th anniversary.

In the address, the President called upon  African-Americans to take matters into their own hands for a better future while urging older African-Americans to push young people to aspire to do more, “our kids can’t all aspire to be LeBron or Lil Wayne,” the President said.

Rightfully, the President also recognized the legacy of institutionalized racism that still pervades American society today. He noted:

The pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different gender.  By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country.  By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray to their God. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

What strikes me as irksome in this otherwise well intentioned paragraph was the bit about Muslim-Americans. The President said that Muslims are viewed with suspicion because “they kneel down to pray to their God.” Or in other words, “their” separate God, who (perhaps in President Obama’s mind) even has a name which happens to be Allah. Ugh.

As a closeted Muslim, President Obama should know that Muslims believe that they worship the same God (capital “G” God) as Christians and Jews and as such, no matter how well intentioned, the President was wrong to use the phrase “their God” in his speech to the NAACP. By doing this, the President (unintentionally I am sure) has helped to further solidify in the minds of American people, the “otherness” of Muslims throughout the world and at home.

Next time the President speaks of Islam he should remember this bit from the Koran which states for believers,

“Do not argue with the people of the scripture [ie, Jews and Christians] except in the nicest possible manner - unless they transgress - and say, ‘We believe in what was revealed to us and in what was revealed to you, and our god and your god is one and the same; to Him we are submitters.’” (Quran 29:46)

Biden, a Vice-President Corrected.

President Obama put the kibosh on Vice-President Biden’s careless words last weekend where he told a reporter: “Israel can determine for itself - it’s a sovereign nation - what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.”

Today the Los Angeles Times is reporting that President Obama has “absolutely not” given Israel any sort of a green light to attack Iran. The President later went on to try to clean up the Vice-President’s loose lips by stating that what the Veep had said was simply “a categorical fact, which is that we can’t dictate to other countries what their security interests are.”