With his speech at the University of Cairo, Barack Obama has confirmed that understand very well the Arabs and Muslims and you know how to contact them. And in fact his speech was full of exhortations and Koranic verses, was full of expressions of sympathy and touched all the issues (seven points), but without presenting anything new, that we do not already know or do not know the common man of the road. He spoke of democracy will not say how to disseminate it, has focused on the need to stop the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories without presenting any convenient mechanism, has stressed its determination to create a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel without would explain how to achieve this

goal. Obama, with his usual intelligence and her extraordinary oratory skills, he wanted to meet all the Iraqis, reaffirming its commitment to withdraw U.S. forces from their country to allow them to self-government; Afghans when he told them that does not want to stay in their country or to build permanent military bases, the Democrats when he said that will help; dictators when he avoided any allusion to changes in regime or the imposition of sanctions against them, the Jews, when he lamented their suffering and deplored the Holocaust, the Palestinians, when he showed sympathy towards their tragedy. It has not forgotten the young, when he promised them scholarships to study in America and development projects, and when focused on women in Islam and asked for their equal rights in various aspects of life. These words aroused the sympathies of many who from the beginning had been attracted to the American president of color. However, after careful examination it can be said that these words apply to that "much ado about nothing." The pillar of the intellectual discourse of the American President, we have long awaited, is represented by its attempt to persuade Arabs and Muslims need to join to the American administration in its war against "terrorism" or against Islamic extremist groups that , according to Obama, even before they threaten the United States. However, he did not speak at all, either openly or allusions to, terrorism, state continuously practiced by Israel against Arabs and Muslims in Palestine, Lebanon, and soon maybe even in Iran. The President Obama, who wanted to remind us that the United States in their present form emerged from the resistance against the colonial empire (British) denied that this principle of resistance, underscoring the ineffectiveness is the same that has asked the Palestinian people to surrender to all forms of violence (or resistance) because it will not get anything. This superficial resistance, and the fact that he has maintained his futility at various points of his speech, is a rather surprising and unexpected by an American president of African origin who claims to belong to the family of the Islamic coast East African (Kenya). But for the resistance, the current country (America) would not have released, as would not have freed the country of his father and his ancestors (Kenya), and with them would not have freed the continent Africa and much of Asia. Condemn the rockets of the Islamic resistance in the Gaza Strip who fall on the heads of innocent people in the southern Israeli settlements could be something meaningful when reached after the sentencing of phosphorus incendiary bombs and missiles of all types and all sizes that the aircraft and Israeli tanks had fired on and a half million Palestinians who live under siege in the Gaza Strip. The president said Obama, in a statement issued a few days before taking up office, he would do what the Israelis do (bomb Strip) where her daughters were hit by rockets during sleep, and we hoped that he would have reconsidered these statements, imagining his daughters instead of the children of Gaza, 400 of whom have died because of bombs and missiles during the Israeli attack on Gaza Strip. Emphasize the need to get behind the story, and ask Muslims not to remain prisoners of the past is a good thing. However, we are not talking about historical reality of 7000 years ago, and even 100 years ago, but things happened only a few years ago. About a month ago fell to the sixth anniversary of invasion of Iraq and the killing of two million Iraqis - half of which as a result of unfair siege imposed on the country, and the other half during the war illegal and immoral. In a few months "celebrate" the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and its transformation into a failed state. Perhaps President Obama wanted to give us an example of his abilities and American blacks to forget the policies of racial discrimination and racist laws under which they lived up to 40-50 years ago. This is a capacity for tolerance that undoubtedly deserves respect, but the comparison is inappropriate when dealing with an entire population that has been deprived of their land, and was expelled to neighboring countries with the massacres, the sieges and bombardments, even in their places of exile - whether in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and West Bank (Jenin and Gaza) or in neighboring countries (the south of Lebanon and Syria). Obama's speech was written no doubt with attention, and captivate the listener from the outset, however, on closer reading, one has the impression that he did not propose any substantial change in the foreign policy of his country against the Islamic world, and that what actually occurred is only a reformulation of the policy under new private lines of provocative phrases like "war on terror", etc. .. The President Obama wants to open a new page in relations with the Islamic world and seek an olive branch to Muslims. This is certainly a thing possible and welcome, provided it is accompanied by sincere apology for the crimes committed by America against Muslims, and its wars prostrates to date, and is followed by a full compensation for material losses and human that they have. The previous U.S. administration has unleashed a war illegal and immoral war against Iraq, and President Obama has courageously acknowledged that this was a war made by choice and not necessity, as was the case with Afghanistan. He has presented this way in the half-apology. The remains to be done what the Germans did with the Jews and what the Iraqis did with Kuwait, or offer an apology and full compensation for bid publicly and without ambiguity. The question is what price to pay to the Arab American president in exchange for his request to Israel to freeze settlements. Obama has said clearly that "the Arab peace initiative is not the end of the responsibilities of the Arabs, and it is their duty to do more." Obama wants to normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for the freezing of settlements, or make an amendment to the gates to the Arab right of return of refugees? Once again we ask Obama, after having listened and applauded his words with which he has sought to improve the image of their country in the Islamic world, to translate his words into action as soon as possible, as ask the Arab leaders who are inebriated When this speech is not free to offer concessions. There is no doubt that the intentions are good for Obama, and his desire for reconciliation is genuine. However, intentions are not enough, and the sympathy that he has won both the color of his skin, both for its history of success and the strength of his speech in Cairo, could vanish as quickly as he imagine, if not translate his words into action very quickly. Abd al-Bari Atwan is a Palestinian journalist living in Britain, is director of the newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi "