If the head of an Arab state or a citizen like me had chosen to respond to US President Barack Obama's address to the world's Muslims, what could he say? I propose selecting from the following: President Barack Obama Salaam alaykum. We also want to turn the page with you, with the United States, Europe and the entire West. We want to start a new page based on honesty and mutual respect, as you proposed, and based on shared interests. You need us as much as we need you. Our countries are not democratic – we cannot deny this. We are the reason, more than anyone else. Being honest means that we should not hold you responsible for our failure. Honesty also requires that you should not deny your share of responsibility for what has happened in the Middle East, where there is no democracy or rule of law, personal or public freedoms or equality for women, and where most regimes are oppressive and authoritarian. Once again, we bear the most responsibility, we are the most important reason for this flagrant failure, but… I will not remind you of the new imperialism or of colonialism that is as old as a soldier's boots. Everyone knows the details. Let us move to the Holocaust in Europe; you have not paid the price for Christian Europe killing six million Jews; you let us pay the price. You transferred the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust to Palestine, while displacing its people. Everyone took part in a crime that is the origin of all subsequent problems. I am addressing the West here; the crimes of the US until the establishment of Israel were very much less than the crimes of Britain, France and Germany. You were the hope for all of us, until the establishment of Israel. From the Balfour Declaration to the Holocaust, and the sending of the Jews to us, with compensation for the survivors and the secret and open theft of our country, the history is there – no one disagrees about this. The sin of the US against the Arabs and Muslims was less than that of the entire West; then Israel ruined this relationship. In specific terms, it began with the Lyndon Johnson administration; we then followed the gradual shifts in US policy, which ended with successive US administrations being partners in Israel's crimes. In saying this, I will repeat (for the third time) that we are responsible for our failure, more than anyone else. I will add that the disaster of Palestine provided excuses for military coups that extinguished the flame of freedom and any real benefits after the end of colonialism. The slogans about “the battle” being more important than anything else meant, practically speaking, that nothing was more important than dictatorial governments. We have always been the victim in the 20th century, and the new century does not appear to be an exception. In its first decade, the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan for completely justified reasons, which remain valid. However, instead of doing away with al-Qaeda after ousting the Taliban regime, the US turned to Iraq and occupied it based on deliberately falsified reasons, and killed one million Iraqis. The killing continues and no one is being killed these days except Muslims, and usually in your wars. Mr. President, We absolutely condemn terror and reject any excuses for it. However, it does not come out of a vacuum. Muslims do not wake up in the morning and decide to blow themselves up at an American target. They see what happened to Palestine in 1948 and 1967, the continuing occupation and killing and the complicity of the West with authoritarian regimes, the failure of secular politics, politics in general, and politicians in their own countries; then they fall prey to terrorist gangs, which are the enemies of all humanity, not just the West. You said that terrorists have killed more Muslims than others, and this is correct. We acknowledge that terror has arisen in our midst, and we acknowledge our failure in anticipating its extent, and then in combating it, just as we have failed on all other fronts. However, we insist that Western policies against Arabs and Muslims, and especially US American policy, have given rise to terror. These policies have functioned like a recruitment office, attracting every extremist and charlatan. Despite our mistakes and your sins, we can defeat terror together. The starting-point lies in correcting Western policies that produce terror, and anything else is a fairy-tale, like the stories of the Torah about Israel. Can we work together? The answer lies with you.
