We saw Mr. Obama as a symbol of this justice. We welcomed him with almost total enthusiasm until he underwent his first real test: Gaza. Even before he officially took office, we expected him to take a stand against Israel’s war on Gaza. We still hope that he will condemn, if only with simple words, this massacre that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, many of them civilians. (I don’t know what you call it in other languages, but in Egypt we call this a massacre.) We expected him to address the reports that the Israeli military illegally used white phosphorus against the people of Gaza. We also wanted Mr. Obama, who studied law and political science at the greatest American universities, to recognize what we see as a simple, essential truth: the right of people in an occupied territory to resist military occupation.
But Mr. Obama has been silent. So his brilliantly written Inaugural Speech did not leave a big impression on Egyptians. We had already begun to tune out. We were beginning to recognize how far the distance is between the great American values that Mr. Obama embodies, and what can actually be accomplished in a country where support for Israel seems to transcend human rights and international law.
He point is valid, but since when does writing sensationalist, 2nd-rate fiction qualify Mr. Alaa to be a spokesman for an entire region? Will we see Dan Brown publishing in al-Ahram next?
Ben ,
No we did not say ALaa spoke for the entire region , but go and ask anyone from morocco , to Algeria , to Libya to Oman , to Qatar and Palestinian territories , they all expected a lot from Mr Obama who did not have the courage to name a country that possesses Nuclear weapons let alone condemn massacres in Gaza . the whole Arab world was very disappointed . I , to be honest, have never expected much after i heard him speak at the Knesset Before his elections . I knew by then Israel comes first no matter what .