Reactions to Obama’s speech addressing the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday were prompt and disparate, covering the gamut between laudatory and derogatory. A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom Obama met last week, described the speech as “a good start and an important step towards a new American policy,” according to Reuters, however Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far been notably silent. And according to UPI, the reaction within Israel to Obama’s speech was ‘divided’:

Analysts on Israeli television stations criticized the American president for failing to mention the word terror in his speech even once, opting instead to use violence. While the professionalism and conviction Obama delivered his speech was praised by some Israeli officials, others felt the president’s reference to the Holocaust followed by a direct passage where he spoke of the suffering and humiliation of the Palestinian people was hurtful and unnecessary.

The speech is reported to have been well received within Cairo itself, according to the Washington Post:

The fact that Barack Obama chose Egypt as the location for Thursday’s address to the Muslim world endeared him to the locals, who are always proud to host a foreigner and even prouder when it shows off their history.

Representing a more cynical, but predictable viewpoint is Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who issued a statement Thursday to say that it will take much more than “words, speech and slogan” to repair America’s “ugly, detested and rough” image, according to the AP.

Likewise, a spokesman for Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Ayman Taha, relayed similarly unimpressed sentiments, describing the approach laid out in the speech as “no different from the policy of his predecessor, George W. Bush,” the BBC reports.

Source: Huffington Post/AP |  Stuart Whatle. Click here to continue reading.

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