Mr. Obama, Speak First at TouroFebruary 8th, 2009 by Andrew Bostom

Touro Synagogue This morning at The American Thinker, I urge President Obama to acknowledge the contemporary plight of Jews beset by resurgent jihadism, and traditional Islamic Jew hatred—before he makes his widely ballyhooed conciliatory speech in a Muslim capital. And=2 0I have the ideal venue for Mr. Obama’s address to Jews—an iconic American symbol of freedom of conscience, and freedom from persecution, which President Kennedy characterized thusly, on September 15, 1963:

It [Touro] is not only the oldest Synagogue in America but also one of the oldest symbols of liberty. No better tradition exists than the history of Touro Synagogue’s great contribution to the goals of freedom and justice for all.
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/mr_obama_speak_first_at_touro.html February 08, 2009

Mr. Obama, Speak First at Touro
By Andrew G. Bostom
Barack Obama's recent inauguration as our 44th President demonstrates the promise and progress of the unique, livin g American experiment in governance begun when George Washington delivered his inaugural address on April 30, 1789.

Mr. Obama's inaugural rhetoric, and symbolic granting of his first post-inauguration interview to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiyya network, emphasized the importance of the Muslim community in the United States, and a "restored" and "respectful" relationship between America and the global Muslim umma (community). The President felt compelled to tell Hisham Melham of Al Arabiyya that it was his administration's solemn duty, "...to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries." Obama reiterated the point. "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect."

As if to underscore the primacy of this outreach effort to the Islamic world, Obama characterized America itself as a country of "Muslims, Christians, Jews" -- having in his earlier inaugural address -- disregarding actual US demography (i.e., recent Pew Data indicating the number of US Muslims are half, or less, the number of US Jews) -- only accorded Muslims second position, after American Christians, but before American Jews, Hindus, and others.
While several commentators, particularly Charles Krauthammer have noted how Mr. Obama's self-flagellating apologetics distort and sully the actual historical record of US actions vis a vis the Muslim world over the past three decades, I was struck by another alarming incongruity: the complete absence of any comparably expressed concerns by the new President for a much more beleaguered and vulnerable people, worldwide -- the Jews.

This unsavory rhetorical omission will almost certainly be compounded by one of Mr. Obama's looming actions, his now much anticipated (since the December 10, 2008 Chicago Tribune story, "Which Muslim capital will Barack Obama choose?" ) delivery of a "major speech" in an Islamic capital aimed, yet again, at "restoration" of US-Muslim relations.
On the one hand, the fact that Cairo, Egypt is being touted as a potential location for this conciliatory address highlights Mr. Obama's willful blindness to the pandemic of jihadism, intimately conjoined to annihilationist Islamic Jew-hatred, afflicting Muslim communities globally, including those within Europe, Canada, and the United States. Yet Cairo is also a very appropriate potential venue for Mr. Obama's pending speech. The capital of Egypt, the world's most populous Arab Muslim nation, Cairo's 1000 year old Al Azhar University (and its mosque) represents the pinnacle of Islamic religious education. Egypt also receives nearly $2 billion US aid per annum. Such American largesse, one could reasonably argue, should provide Mr. Obama persuasive leverage over our erstwhile Muslim ally -- for example, demanding, under threat of withdrawing this aid, that Egypt actively seek out and destroy the smuggling tunnels through which flow rockets and other munitions from the Sinai peninsula into Gaza, to be fired by Hamas (and its allied) jihadists upon civilian population centers in southern Israel.

But apart from diplomatic threats -- which can be made privately, Mr. Obama should demonstrate courageous moral leadership in his public address, demanding an end to the declarations of Jew-hatred, and even calls for jihad genocide against the Jews, issued regularly by Egyptian clerics, including authoritative Islamic religious leaders at the renowned Al Azhar University.
Preaching this sacralized hatred is endemic in Egypt. A front page New York Times story published January 10, 2009, included extracts from the Friday sermon (of 1/9/09) at Al Azhar mosque pronounced by Egyptian-government appointed cleric Sheik Eid Abdel Hamid Youssef. Referencing well-established Antisemitic motifs from the Koran (citations provided, below), Sheikh Youssef intoned,

Muslim brothers, God has inflicted the Muslim nation with a people whom God has become angry at [Koran