PBS News Hour Interview
"JUDY WOODRUFF: And for that, we get four views.
Rami Khouri is an editor-at-large of the Daily Star Newspaper in Lebanon. He's also the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut.
Abderrahim Foukara is the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Al Jazeera Arabic.
Sumaiya Hamdani is an associate professor of history at George Mason University, where she founded the school's Islamic studies program and served as its director until last year.
And As'ad AbuKhalil is a professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus......
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me -- I'm going to interrupt you there, because I want to bring in Mr. AbuKhalil out in California. As'ad AbuKhalil, from your perspective, how different were the words today from what we've heard from this president and from any president before?
AS'AD ABUKHALIL, California State University at Stanislaus: Not much, if you judge it by substance and not by style. In fact, if you judge it by the context, you have to remember that some of the positive reception to this speech in the Arab world is particularly because he is not George W. Bush, who is mightily loathed and despised throughout the Middle East and by Arabs and Muslims.
But you have to remember, just before the speech, he met with the Saudi king, he paid him tributes, and he praised his wisdom. And then he came to Cairo and then he also praised the Egyptian president, refused to label him for the dictator that he is.
And then we are expected that a nice-delivered speech, well-crafted, is going to sway Muslim-Arab public opinion? It's going to take much more than that.
More importantly, there are serious contradictions in the speech itself. On the one hand, he gave some lofty remarks about democracy and human rights, which were words that were uttered before by George W. Bush. But in the same speech, he also praised the Saudi king, the head of a kingdom which still practices rituals of public beheadings in the public square and which also still endorses the same fanatical ideology that inspires al-Qaida terrorists around the world.
He spoke about the Palestinian grievancaes, but in very bland and very general terms. He spoke very specifically about who was doing what to the Israelis, but when he spoke about Palestinian suffering, it was as if the Palestinians had for decades been suffering from successive hurricanes and tornados, as if the Israelis are blameless to what happened to them........"
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"JUDY WOODRUFF: And for that, we get four views.
Rami Khouri is an editor-at-large of the Daily Star Newspaper in Lebanon. He's also the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut.
Abderrahim Foukara is the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Al Jazeera Arabic.
Sumaiya Hamdani is an associate professor of history at George Mason University, where she founded the school's Islamic studies program and served as its director until last year.
And As'ad AbuKhalil is a professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus......
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me -- I'm going to interrupt you there, because I want to bring in Mr. AbuKhalil out in California. As'ad AbuKhalil, from your perspective, how different were the words today from what we've heard from this president and from any president before?
AS'AD ABUKHALIL, California State University at Stanislaus: Not much, if you judge it by substance and not by style. In fact, if you judge it by the context, you have to remember that some of the positive reception to this speech in the Arab world is particularly because he is not George W. Bush, who is mightily loathed and despised throughout the Middle East and by Arabs and Muslims.
But you have to remember, just before the speech, he met with the Saudi king, he paid him tributes, and he praised his wisdom. And then he came to Cairo and then he also praised the Egyptian president, refused to label him for the dictator that he is.
And then we are expected that a nice-delivered speech, well-crafted, is going to sway Muslim-Arab public opinion? It's going to take much more than that.
More importantly, there are serious contradictions in the speech itself. On the one hand, he gave some lofty remarks about democracy and human rights, which were words that were uttered before by George W. Bush. But in the same speech, he also praised the Saudi king, the head of a kingdom which still practices rituals of public beheadings in the public square and which also still endorses the same fanatical ideology that inspires al-Qaida terrorists around the world.
He spoke about the Palestinian grievancaes, but in very bland and very general terms. He spoke very specifically about who was doing what to the Israelis, but when he spoke about Palestinian suffering, it was as if the Palestinians had for decades been suffering from successive hurricanes and tornados, as if the Israelis are blameless to what happened to them........"
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