Mideast divided on Obama

AMMAN, Jordan | President Obama’s much-heralded speech on U.S. relations with the Islamic world provoked sharply differing reactions on both sides of the Middle East’s great divide.

Many Israelis worried that the president had said too much, while many in the Muslim world cautioned that Mr. Obama’s talk Thursday of a “new beginning” is less important than what his administration will do to reshape America’s image and policies in the region.

The Muslim world wants to see “implementation, not just talk on the Palestinian issue,” said Jamil Abu Bark, spokesman for Jordan’s powerful Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement. “It doesn’t need a speech, but action. We want action on the ground.”

But Mr. Obama’s call for an even-handed treatment of Israeli and Palestinian grievances brought a wary response from the government of conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and outright rejection from the Israeli settlers on disputed lands, whom Mr. Obama again singled out for criticism in Cairo.

Aliza Herbst, spokeswoman for the Council of Jewish Settlers in Judea and Samaria, likened Mr. Obama’s speech to singer John Lennon’s utopian ballad “Imagine.”

“When it comes from an American president, it’s scary,” she said. “He’s trying to make world peace and we’re going to pay for it. He’s demanding things that aren’t going to happen.”

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An equally harsh reaction came in a joint statement by eight radical Palestinian factions based in Syria, including Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Mr. Obama restated U.S. demands that Hamas recognize Israel and renounce violence as a pre-condition for a final peace deal.

“Obama’s statement is an attempt to mislead people and create more illusions to improve America’s aggressive image in the Arab and Islamic world,” the statement said.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government praised the speech in general terms, but avoided any mention of Mr. Obama’s call for a halt to new Israeli settlements in the West Bank and his unequivocal support for an independent Palestinian state.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei did not refer explicitly to Mr. Obama’s Cairo speech, which included the first acknowledgement by a U.S. president of the American role in Iran’s 1953 coup. But in a speech in Tehran, the Iranian leader also insisted that mere words from the new president were not enough.

Saying the nations of the Middle East “hate the United States from the bottom of their hearts,” the ayatollah said: “The new U.S. government seeks to transform this image. I say firmly, that this will not be achieved by talking, speech and slogans.”

In Baghdad, Mr. Obama’s speech led the evening news broadcasts, but quickly gave way to stories about local politics and corruption.

Outside a furniture store in the Baghdad shopping district of Karrada, a modest crowd of about 15 people stood quietly around a television that had been set up to broadcast the speech - significantly smaller than past gatherings to watch Iraq-related presidential speeches.

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