Tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are.

Since Obama has been in power much hope was vested in him, but there are many things that never became transparent about him, although it was one of his campaigning points, that his government would be the most transparent in US history. Regrettably, his Cairo speech shows an opposite picture. He thought he knew the Arab World and would be able to appeal to their aspirations. He exaggerated the number of Arabs who live in the United States. I admit that this exaggeration was once a trait of the Arab World, but by the time Obama came to power, the Arab World had changed and their aspirations came closer to those of other nations, such as the French, the Germans, and others. This hope maybe ignited the Arab Spring revolutions, which lacked any preparation and were doomed to failure from the onset.

I do not think that the Arab people were hoping for a religious leadership. This is however what happened in Tunisia, where they found themselves with the religious Ennahda party and in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood took over. Obama did nothing to help the people of these countries. Libya is another story altogether. Furthermore, Obama wanted to change the face of the Middle East, while I am sure that he is out of touch with the Middle East, although he studied the Koran in Indonesia. When he spoke about the Jews and the Palestinians, it became obvious that he had no idea about the real situation of the Israelis and of the Arabs called Palestinians.

In 1915 Britain had promised Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, through T. E. Lawrence, independence for an Arab country covering most of the Arab Middle East in exchange for his support, while also promising to create and foster a Jewish national home in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in return for Jewish support.

In 1922 the British, who had the Mandate for the entire territory of Palestine gave 77% of the land of Palestine to King Abdullah and the rest of 23% to the Jews (the Zionist Movement located in the USA). The Palestinians never had their own country. They lived there, but most of them were Arabs from the surrounding countries..

Mr. President, with all due respect, where is the tranquility that your press secretary is alluding to? Can you mention one single Arab state that succeeded with your method of ousting the leaders? The Arab leaders may not have been elected by the people, as you wished for and wanted it so dearly to succeed, but none of the Arab Spring revolutions has succeeded - quite the opposite was correct.

You became President of the United State because the American people didn’t know who you really were and they believed all what you told them. You know why, because the American people are lovely and they took the risk. First, they are a generous people and many just wanted to give you the chance, not like the Europeans who are more meticulous than our people. Instead of taking the chance that Americans gave you, you thought the Americans are stupid. Mr. President, the Americans didn’t want to disappoint their minority as they wanted to give a chance to this minority too and to the left wing, which maybe could do better than Bush or Clinton. Only after the mess you did, they finally realized that you are not a leader and you couldn’t lead a people like the Americans who gave you the opportunity.

Now we get to the Jewish people that you pretend to know. It became obvious in your Cairo speech that in fact you do not know Jewish people or their wisdom and their history. You can imagine that these people, who have a long history of thousands of years and have experienced much suffering, have developed a lot of fields, such as medicine, science, language, and the Arab and the Hebrew grammar which were developed at the same time. They were the allies of the Arabs in Spain and succeeded very well together. We should also remember that the Jews fought alongside the Berbers, against the invading Arabs. Although the Jews lived in many Arab countries, they never believed for a moment that they were the masters of the lands. The fact that the British called the Arab population as well as the Jews in the present Israel “Palestinians” may show that this name was not reserved to the Arabs. I am not a historian but I know the facts about my people. Our ancestors never lost sight of their history. Even after they were conquered by the Romans, they kept their history alive, wherever they lived.

In WWII, the American Jews played an enormous role, with their scientific discoveries, such as breaking the Japanese code and others. You, who studied at the University, you should know.
I’m referring to Jeffrey Goldberg’s March 2, 2014 article. Mr. President, I don’t believe that either the Palestinians or the Israelis asked you to initiate negotiations between them, as they know fair well that all previous negotiations failed. What bothered me the most is the pressure you constantly applied on the Israelis through Kerry, for actions both sides were not prepared for. I am not sure if these were your ideas or John Kerry’s. But being a man of 83 years of age, and who lived through WWII, I can assure you that whoever came up with the idea did not think it through.

The pressure you put on Netanyahu directly or through Kerry is felt by the entire Jewish people, and we are not ready to accept it, because we don’t believe that good solutions can be reached by force. My father, as an arbitrator always succeeded, by acting with a different philosophy than yours. Let’s be honest, can anyone, you or your government prove to me or to the Jewish people that Palestine ever was the country of the Arabs who called themselves  Palestinians ?

Where is your generosity? Can’t you see the disproportion between the Arab lands and the Jewish land? The Jewish population accounts for less than 2% of the Arab populations. We the Jews lived in Arab countries for centuries, but never pretended to create a Jewish state there. When the Arabs no longer wanted us they simply expelled us or let us understand we had to leave, and we left peacefully. Do you know how much the property the Jews had to leave in Arab lands is worth today?

We were an important part of the population in these countries. At my age I am aware of human stupidity, which can launch catastrophes. I think that we have the responsibility to appease the parties, in order to avoid another holocaust, for the Jews or for the Arabs. Mr. Obama, at my age I could be your father. Don’t reject what I am telling you. Don’t you think that it is weird, that especially you, who gave instructions to kill Bin-Laden, are now supporting Khaled Mashal, the terrorist head of the Hamas, who is conveniently hiding in Qatar, but has caused the death of many innocent people, and you make him the partner of the US? Don’t you feel that there is a conflict of interest?

I am sure you will agree with me that Israel cannot live in peace, while leaving Hamas’s terror capabilities intact in its backyard.
With all my respect for the Presidency of the US, I had to open my heart and show things as they are. When I came to the US, over forty years, ago, I was told that I was in a free country with the right to free expression which I took the liberty use in order to defend my people.

Copyright 2014 Emile Tubiana