The Arabs Between their Goodwill to Obama and their own Good Will

A Reaction to Dr. Abdelmajid Hajjis Why President Obama Lost the Goodwill of Palestinians, Egyptians, Moroccans, and Others.

By: Abdelmalek Elkadoussi. Researcher in media and communication studies University Moulay Ismail Meknes (e.mail: maleknet69@hotmail.com)

Seminal in all terms, the essay Why President Obama Lost the Goodwill of Palestinians, Egyptians, Moroccans, and Others presents profound geopolitical wit and an uncontested high profile knowledge of the local and global political issues that are still bewildering the postmodern mindset. The author Dr. Abdelmajid Hajji offers in his 13-page article a concise demystification of one of the most problematic enigmas that hardly any observer talks about: President Obamas loss of credibility in Middle Eastern lenses. It presents a systematic deconstruction of two of the most interconnected concepts, American statesmanship and American power; and proposes a few tips to remember about the

interpretation of political discourse and the perception of geopolitical issues.

Tracing the beginnings of an overambitious president and zooming at the memorable moments in his presidency, the author recalls the big words and the promises, the merry faces and the ovations, and the respective great hopes and expectations. He explains the new presidents fast-growing image and the potential prospects it held for the international community in general and the Middle East in particular. For its natural riches and its ideological dynamics, the Middle East makes the worlds biggest needs and its biggest fears. For these reasons, it is the locus around which international politics hovers. It by all means

constitutes a lively political phenomenon, unsurprisingly makes much of the daily news, and consumes much of the international communitys attention. Two Middle Eastern issues however, would put Obama before the real test. One is residual and relates to the Palestinian question and the second is emergent and pertains to the spring of the Arab peoples. These two issues, together with a huge economic crisis at home, made him one of the unluckiest US presidents ever as Dr Hajji rightly puts. Great men however show in hard times, or thus the dictum goes; yet it was not the case for Obama in many ways.

In pre-modern and modern times, great Arab statesmen were great orators, their charisma depended a great deal on their posture, their manly harsh voice, and their fluency and eloquence among other qualities. I have in mind here the documented images of Abdelnasser in Egypt, Hassan II in Morocco, and King Hussein in Jordan. They arguably won the hearts and minds of their peoples (at least the ignorant downtrodden illiterate masses of them) partly because of that. Postmodern politics however believes in deeds not words, unfortunately not in our region. A. Khatibi was right in depicting the Arabs as a verbal phenomenon. Their culture is founded on verbiage and language spin. E. Saids defense of Arabic rhetoric and metaphoricity hides behind it a genuine concern about perception and sound judgement. It is true that Obama first won Arab hearts since his memorable first words after his election. Either in Washington, Istanbul, or Cairo he spoke like an enchanting poet or a messiah who came to save the world with the magic of words , his speeches cast a magic spell on the audiences and had them repeat after him yes we can!. Like in old times, people believed every word the man said.

It is true that our hopes as Arabs were keen on a novel American foreign policy particularly after its flagrant deterioration in the neoconservative era, that the election of an

Afro-American US president bore upbeat prospects for the residual issues in the region, that the media introduced Obama to the world as the long-awaited messiah who would figure out, with the genius and charisma that he had, the trickiest socio-economic and political issues that bewildered the most qualified experts of the world. Alas, as Dr. Hajji puts it right, grand speeches are less suited for untried ideas. Obamas grand orations in iconic platforms such as that of Istanbul or that of Cairo made great promises and instilled great expectations in the Middle Eastern mindset. A literally new narrative and totally different frames about Islam, Arabs, and the Arab-Israeli conflict rendered over a sixth of the world population listen with their hearts more than with their minds. It would be less sensible at the time to show cynicism or skepticism after the bloody Bush and Rice era and their desperate schemes for a new Middle East; but it was at least a real test for statesmanship in the short run.

Obama failed the test according to Dr. Hajji for two primordial reasons. The first pertains to the socio-political dynamics in the Arab streets. The second relates to the powerful Jewish public diplomacy.

The Arab street alone proves the man wrong, for all his calculations and plans did not foresee a gigantic turn of history marked by an exceptional youth agency that unmasked the greed and corruption of leaders at home and debunked the erroneous integrity and credibility of leaders outside. The scruples with which the American and European politicians announced their wavering support for Arab dissent, and the imbalance and stuttering aspect of their pronouncements revealed first their lack of political insight and their inability to read the Arab mindset despite the myriad reports they got from the many Middle East studies institutes and the numerous public diplomacy forums; and second their inability to move forward steadily in order to carry out their policies and fulfill their promises. They simply

lost control and integrity and failed to read history. It is true that economic crisis inside and socio-political turmoil outside made the jigsaw puzzle hard to reassemble and the equation hard to figure out for president Obama. The second real humiliation comes after a contest of statesmanship between him and his irrevocable friend and ally B. Netanyahu. Warmly hosted by a joint congress assembly, the Israeli Prime minister clearly sent messages of indignation to Obama who dared

pronounce the necessity for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders with mutual swaps with the Palestinians. The big NO ironically unanimously received a lengthy standing ovation on the part of the American representatives (for future election ambitions or by dint of the powerful Jewish Lobby). That day (May 24, 2011), Obamas fellow compatriots sent a firm Negative to his Middle Eastern policy. Perhaps one obvious signification of this moment is the uncontested fact that the US president no longer controls the situation, and that no matter how assertive and eloquent he might be, he can by no means transcend the will of the American political institutions whose loyalty and support for Israel are unshakable. Dr. Hajji meaningfully depicts Obama as a tragic hero who fell victim of his own pitfalls. His failure to come to terms with the Arab expectations emanates from his own weakness as a green statesman who thought that words alone could change history. Nevertheless, one ought to remember that the weakness of one means the strength of another. Out of this threefold contest of power, two potential winners are likely to emerge: the first is Netanyahu who will enjoy a short-lived victory with the insurance of the American Vito to the Palestinians plea for international recognition for their statehood and Obamas inability to pronounce a narrative that deviates from Israeli frames of what is going on in the Arab region . The second, and this time it is likely to seize a long-term victory and impose novel premises for Middle East politics, is the Arab street. Only the historic Arab spring will

arguably set new rules to the game. It will determine the terms of loyalties and interests. This of course is likely to happen only if Arabs are alert enough and possess good will instead of simple goodwill to Obama and his disciples. The essay projects a set of lessons to learn about the perception of postmodern statesmanship and the interpretation of political discourse. The first lesson to remember is that the credibility of politicians is gauged not by their posture and eloquence but by their deeds. Second, no matter how powerful a statesman might look, they can by no means go against historical dynamics and defeat peoples good will. A further lesson concerns Arab audiences who listen to Obamas and other statesmens orations with their hearts and haste to conclusions founded on first impressions. It tells them listen with reason, read critically, and believe in deeds not words. The power of Dr. Hajjis vision resides in his firm audacity to name things with their genuine labels. To address an emblematic and enigmatic an issue like Obamas loss of credibility in Arab lenses required knowledge and discipline. The author manages to provide both. Ample knowledge manifests in his ability to understand the ambivalence of the

problematic, to relate its different threads in a logical pattern, and to bring enough evidence to support his arguments. Thanks to this seminal essay, Arab and worldwide readers are likely to decode one of the most enigmatic issues in (post)modern geopolitics.