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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, EGYPT — As Mohammed Farahat sat among hundreds of Arab and Muslim political, business and civil-society leaders listening to U.S. President George W. Bush lecture the Arab world yesterday, the smartly suited Egyptian executive became more and more upset.
Addressing the leaders at the opening of the World Economic Forum in the Middle East, Mr. Bush encouraged them to embrace democracy, including women's rights.
Winding up a five-day trip to the region, Mr. Bush took a strikingly tougher tone with Arab nations than he did with Israel in a speech Thursday to the Knesset. Israel received effusive praise from the President while Arab nations heard a litany of criticisms mixed with some compliments.
“Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Mr. Bush said yesterday at this Red Sea beach resort. It was a clear reference to host Egypt, where main secular opposition figure Ayman Nour has been jailed and President Hosni Mubarak has led an authoritarian government since 1981.
Unable to hear any more, Mr. Farahat stood up. “I walked out,” he said in American-accented English later in the lobby of the conference centre. “It was so arrogant.”
Most of the participants at this high-profile gathering remained in their seats, but the President's speech drew only scattered applause.
In his speech to the Knesset, Mr. Bush praised Israel on the occasion of its 60th anniversary, calling it the freest democracy in the Middle East. He made no mention of the 40 years in which Palestinians have been under de facto Israeli administration and not a word on the sacrifices Israel would have to make for the Palestinians to have a state alongside it.
Even soft-spoken Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Knesset speech “angered” him.
“We were not happy with it,” he told reporters yesterday. “I frankly … asked him that the American position … be balanced.”
Mr. Abbas told Israeli Knesset member Yossi Beilin yesterday that he would quit if substantial progress in peace talks was not made over the next six months, according to the lawmaker's office.
Mr. Bush, however, was as optimistic as ever, saying yesterday that a peace agreement could be achieved by the end of the year. In what seemed like an attempt to appease the Arabs, he added that Israel would have to make “tough sacrifices.”
Many, but not all, Arabs were skeptical.
“Why now, at the 11th hour?” asked Saleem Ben Nasser Ismaily, a businessman from Oman. “If he really had that intention, he should have worked on it eight years ago.”
“I liked the freedom part of his speech,” a young Saudi businessman said. “I truly believe in democracy but I don't think the people will accept it in my country. We always go back to religion and history. You have to go by the book.”
Michael Tarazi, an Arab-American lawyer and former adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team, called Mr. Bush's visions about resolving the Palestinian-Israeli dispute “borderline delusional.”
But he was impressed that Mr. Bush also did not hesitate to criticize the Arab regimes.
“It made me proud that a U.S. president spoke so honestly in front of power,” said Tarazi. “I wish he could speak as honestly to the Israelis as he does to the Arabs.” With a report from The Associated Press
