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World Jewish News
Obama calls for redoubling of efforts toward 2-state solution
05.06.2009
US President Barack Obama called Friday for a redoubling of efforts toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying "the moment is now for us to act on what we all know to be the truth." After meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, the US president said: "The United States can't force peace upon the parties. But what we've tried to do is clear away some of the misunderstandings."
He said the entire international community was going to have to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace, but that the ultimate responsibility lies with the two groups.
Obama said he's worked harder than other presidents in recent years to arrange a Mideast peace agreement, arguing he's created "the space, the atmosphere" for new talks.
Asked why he thinks the "moment is now" to restart talks, Obama noted that in just his first five months in office, "we've seen extraordinary activity already on this issue, and that sent a signal to all the parties."
He said he was sending special envoy George Mitchell back to the region next week to follow up on his Cairo speech.
Obama also said he's seen "some progress" in bringing stability to the world in the wake of the deep recession that has crisscrossed the continents in recent months, and said he and Merkel agreed that they must continue to "work very closely together" to restore their economies and those of other nations as well.
The US president said he had not asked for any commitments from Germany as the United States seeks to close the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and determines what to do with the terrorism suspects there.
Merkel praised Obama's speech he delivered to the Muslim world from Cairo and said it could be a point of departure for Middle East peace efforts.
Merkel stressed after meeting Obama that "we need a two-state solution" with Israel living side-by-side with a Palestinian state.
The German leader said Thursday's address was "a significant speech."
She said it "can be the point of departure for many political activities" regarding the Middle East peace process. Merkel said Germany was ready to help in that process.
Friday's joint address came before the US president was to fly by helicopter to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where an estimated 56,000 people perished. Most were Jews - worked to death, shot or hanged by Nazi guards.
One day earlier in Cairo, Obama issued a scathing indictment of those who question the Holocaust, saying that to do so "is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful."
"Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong and only serves to evoke in the minds of the Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve," Obama added. It was a pointed message to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has expressed doubts that 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and who has urged that Israel be wiped from the map.
With stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt behind him, Obama turned his attention to Germany. He heads later Friday to France to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Allies' D-Day invasion.
In this eastern city on the Elbe River, Obama and Merkel walked together through the gate of Dresden Castle. They headed into an ornate room to sign books - he wrote "Greetings from the people of the United States!" - for Saxony and Dresden. Minutes later, they retreated to hold private talks, primarily on the nuclear standoff with Iran and the slumping global economy.
Obama needed to tread lightly, since Merkel is campaigning to keep her job in a September election contest with her foreign minister, Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Dresden is a city with its own bitter wartime memories. Starting on the night of Feb. 13, 1945, first British, then American bombers pounded the defenseless and largely non-strategic architectural gem, igniting a firestorm in which 25,000 people died - and in so doing, creating an enduring controversy.
Aides said Obama did not plan to address the firebombing, and was in Dresden at the invitation of Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany.
The Buchenwald stop - Obama is the first US president to visit the forced labor camp - was also personal. A great-uncle helped liberate a nearby satellite camp, Ohrdruf, in early April 1945 just days before other US Army units overran Buchenwald.
"It was full of people," Charlie Payne, now 84, recalled of Ohrdruf by phone from his Chicago home. "The people were in terrible shape, dressed in rags, most of them emaciated. Practically skin and bones."
Ohrdruf no longer stands. But Buchenwald's main gate, crematorium, hospital and two guard towers have been kept as a memorial.
Accompanying Obama to the site was Elie Wiesel, a 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, author and Holocaust survivor, who as a boy was taken to Auschwitz, then to Buchenwald, where his father died in 1945 three months before liberation.
Following the tour, Obama was flying to Landstuhl medical hospital for private visits with US troops recovering from wounds sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he was ending the day in Paris - reuniting with his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha, who planned a brief holiday in the City of Light after the Normandy ceremonies.
Saturday's Normandy observance at the US cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer also was to be a moment for family memories. Obama's grandfather, Stanley Dunham, came ashore at Omaha Beach six weeks after D-Day. Dunham's older brother Ralph hit Omaha on D-Day plus four.
The president summoned family memories on Thursday in making his plea for understanding to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.
Speaking at the main auditorium of Cairo University, Obama, a Christian whose father was a Kenyan Muslim, recalled living with his mother in Jakarta.
"As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk," he reminisced.
Obama said his life's experience has taught him Islam is a religion of peace and justice.
"The enduring faith of over a billion people," he said, "is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few."
Источник: JTA
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