UPDATE: Got the video much thanks to eretz
The route to peace, he said, begins by trying to "stand in someone else's shoes." (LA Times)
And, he added, “I say the same thing to my Jewish friends, which is you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians. Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes to see through their eyes — that's how peace begins." (Politico)
The Jewish people cannot walk in the shoes of suicide bombers and jihadis. They will never teach their children blood libels, they will never live to die. They will never revere death. They will not make the objective of life murder and violence. Would Truman or Roosevelt have told allied soldiers to walk in the shoes of Nazi soldiers?
Obama did a town hall meeting with the students in Turkey this morning. Here's the full video. Atlas reader Andy heard the last question and said, "listen to the moral equivalence he drew between Israelis who are concerned about being blown up on a bus, and Palestinians who get their feelings hurt when their travel is restricted. Or as he put it, their 'integrity.' Obama spoke as if he sees no difference between a murderous cult and those who try and stop that murderous cult. Palestinian murderers have just as much of a legitimate complaint as does Israelis."
If you can't watch the full video - fast forward to the question and answer. Nothing exposes the plant like an off the teleprompter, no note Q & A, showing he's a dangerous maroon. Uh uh uh...
Here's the transcript:
QUESTION: I thank you for the opportunity to ask you a question. Right now I am in the Turkish language and literature faculty of this university. How do you assess the Prime Minister's attitude in Davos? Had you been in the same situation, would you have reacted the same way?
If you missed the "Davos moment" - when the Prime Minister of Turkey walked on the President of Israel - view it here: DAVOS: ISRAEL SPEAKS ELOQUENTLY, TURKEY STORMS OUT
OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think very highly of your Prime Minister. I've had a chance now to talk with him first in London. I had spoken to him on the phone previously, but we had the opportunity to meet in London during the G-20, and then we've been obviously having a number of visits while I've been here in Turkey.
And so I think that he is a good man who is very interested in promoting peace in the region and takes great pride I believe in trying to help work through the issues between Israel and its neighbors. And Turkey has a long history of being an ally and a friend of both Israel and its neighbors. And so it can occupy a unique position in trying to resolve some of these differences.
I wasn't at Davos so I don't want to offer an opinion about how he responded and what prompted his reaction. I will say this -- that I believe that peace in the Middle East is possible. I think it will be based on two states, side by side: a Palestinian state and a Jewish state. I think in order to achieve that, both sides are going to have to make compromises.
I think we have a sense of what those compromises should be and will be. Now what we need is political will and courage on the part of leadership. And it is not the United States' role or Turkey's role to tell people what they have to do, but we can be good friends in encouraging them to move the dialogue forward.
I have to believe that the mothers of Palestinians and the mothers of Israelis hope the same thing for their children.
They want them not to be vulnerable to violence. They don't want, when their child gets on a bus, to worry that that bus might explode. They don't want their child to have to suffer indignities because of who they are. And so sometimes I think that if you just put the mothers in charge for a while, that things would get resolved. And it's that spirit of thinking about the future and not the past that I just talked about earlier that I think could help advance the peace process, because if you look at the situation there, over time I don't believe it's sustainable.
It's not sustainable for Israel's security because as populations grow around them, if there is more and more antagonism towards Israel, over time that will make Israel less secure.
It's not sustainable for the Palestinians because increasingly their economies are unable to produce the jobs and the goods and the income for people's basic quality of life.
Their job is jihad.
In the same breath, not 5 minutes before he said this:
I agree that Al Qaida is an enormous threat not just to the United
States but to the world. I have no sympathy and I have no patience for
people who would go around blowing up innocent people for a political
cause. I don't believe in that.
A double standard for the Jews?
The NY Times here:
During a question-and-answer session with university students here, Mr. Obama said that he still believes that “peace in the Middle East is possible. I think it will be based on two states side by side,” he said.
“What we need,” Mr. Obama said, “is political will and courage on the part of the leadership.”
That's rich. Obambi preaching courage.
His comments come a day after he publicly repudiated statements from Israel’s hawkish new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, that agreements reached at an American-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Md., in 2007 have “no validity.”
Speaking before the Turkish parliament on Monday, Mr. Obama said that Palestinian statehood was “a goal that the parties agreed to in the roadmap and at Annapolis. That is a goal that I will actively pursue as president.”
A terror state to commit the second holocaust. Yes, that's it - that's the peace.
Introduced as “Barack Hussein Obama,” the president told the assembly that he planned to push for a two-state solution in the Middle East, despite the view of many foreign policy experts that such a goal will be even more difficult to reach because of the makeup of the new Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not to mention the fractured state of internal Palestinian politics.
Israel does not answer to Obama or the soon to be defunct NY Times. They speak only to the survival of the Jewish people.
“In his remarks today in Ankara, President Obama missed a valuable opportunity to honor his public pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement.
Mr. Obama’s remarks, he said, fell “far short of the clear promise he made as a candidate that he would, as president, fully and unequivocally recognize this crime against humanity.”
During the Parliament speech, Mr. Obama did speak of the Armenia issue, saying, “History is often tragic, but unresolved, it can be a heavy weight.”
Coward.
Dragging out those old racist canards. The man is President - keep talking about slavery in the US. That's rich.
VIDEO Part I
minute 3:23 "America has become "selfish" "crass " - the country that Zero knows.
"America has made mistakes and has its flaws" - frankly, the only one mistake I can think of is his presidency. Do you hear any other world leader talk about their country the way this thief-in-the-night does? On foreign soil no less. Have you seen any other leader trashing his country everywhere he goes?
And the terror loving media picks up on it immediately. Here is AP's take:
Obama said that despite its flaws and past mistakes, the United States is poised for a fresh start with Muslims and the rest of the world"
Did he apologize for 911 yet?
Part II
Notice how he keeps saying, "peoples and countries, through no fault of their own, are being very hard hit by the world economic crisis" (minute .15) - implying of course that it's the US's fault. He does this deliberately. He did this in London too. Blamed America for the world "global crisis". He wants the world to blame us. He wants to drum up anger and hate and fuel the anarchy in the streets toward the US.
"Simple exchanges can break down walls between us". He thinks he's G-d.
Obama ends Europe trip with tour of Istanbul mosque He's got it assbackwards.
US President Barack Obama visited a landmark mosque in Istanbul on Tuesday, following strong messages of US reconciliation with the Islamic world on his maiden trip to a mainly Muslim country.
BTW, can the man answer a fookin question? What a blowhard. The girl from Hungary lobbed him a nerfball (not even a softball).
