By Alan Fram
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Two high-stakes speeches exactly a year apart, both delivered by Barack Obama, both focused on the Middle East. Same message, same tone? Not really.
The president reached out Thursday to the world’s billion-plus Muslims in a conciliatory Cairo speech that included a bow to that religion and its contributions to the United States.
He spoke of the U.S. desire to remove its troops from Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan, lamented that Palestinians have spent decades suffering “intolerable” treatment, and decried their “daily humiliations” under Israeli “occupation.”
On June 4, 2008, exactly one year earlier, presidential candidate Obama’s emphasis was different when he addressed his country’s most influential Jewish lobbying group.
He promised the American Israel Public Affairs Committee an “unshakable commitment” to Israel’s security, bemoaned the “rockets raining down” on Israeli towns from Palestinian territory, and said he would never force the Jewish nation to make concessions to its Palestinian and Arab antagonists.
To be sure, the speeches were consistent in important ways. In each, Obama stressed his desire for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, his strong support for Israel and his backing for a Palestinian state existing alongside Israel. Both mentioned his opposition to any additional Israeli settlements on disputed lands, and his belief that Arabs and Palestinians must renounce violence.
Yet at the same time, the two addresses underscored different approaches tailored to two vastly different situations and audiences.
“Presidents, Democratic and Republican, take different positions on issues when they’re campaigning than when they’re governing,” said Aaron David Miller, a scholar on international affairs for the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center who has been a State Department adviser on the Middle East for two decades.
“That’s normal standard operating procedure, it’s not viewed as hypocritical, and it’s based on the assumption that you can’t govern unless you run a smart campaign” and get elected.
Last year, Obama was a presidential contender wooing a voting bloc that, while usually overwhelmingly Democratic, had some members who seemed uncertain about his commitment to Israel and even harbored suspicions that he might be a Muslim.
Obama, a Christian, ended up getting eight in 10 Jewish votes last November, according to exit polls of voters.
Last week in Cairo, Obama as president was seeking to improve the U.S. image in the Muslim world, a relationship battered by years of American combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was also trying to nudge Israel and its adversaries toward serious negotiations, something he said he would make an early priority of his administration.
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said it was not surprising that Obama’s two speeches were not identical and called the differences small.
“The speeches are right in line with one another, and have a remarkable amount of consistency” on their most important points, he said.
In each speech, Obama emphasized his common ground with his audience.
He told the Jewish gathering he learned about the Holocaust from a great uncle, an American soldier in World War II who was with a unit that helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp in Germany.
He told his Cairo listeners about his upbringing in Muslim Indonesia.
There was also more subtle differences between the two addresses.
Obama, who prides himself on his oratory and devotes time to carefully choosing his phrases, used the words “terror,” “terrorist” or “terrorism” 11 times when talking to AIPAC last year. In Cairo, those words weren’t used at all, with Obama instead referring to “extremists.”
The president also referred to Palestine, presumably the name of a future Palestinian state, twice during his Cairo remarks. He avoided the term completely to AIPAC.
Obama’s two addresses also saw him attempt an especially intricate verbal dance on one of the Middle East’s most emotional issues, the future status of Jerusalem.
When he was seeking Jewish-American votes a year ago, he said the holy city “will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” After Palestinians complained, he later said the city’s fate should be decided by negotiation.
On Thursday, he wooed his Cairo audience in part by saying Jerusalem must be “a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims.”
“There are certain issues like Jerusalem that are untouchable as a candidate,” said Miller. “You have to touch them if you’re going to be governing as a president who is going to get involved in the negotiations.”
