JERUSALEM — On his stops in the Holy Land Thursday, President Barack Obama turned again and again to a subject not obviously connected to the current troubles in the mideast: the struggles of African Americans in the United States.

One of the parallels the president drew—comparing the plight of Palestinians to that of blacks in the U.S.—has drawn criticism in the past when he raised it in this region.

During a press conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama said young people he’d met on the trip made him think of his own children.

“Whenever I meet these young people, whether they’re Palestinian or Israeli, I’m reminded of my own daughters, and I know what hopes and aspirations I have for them,” Obama said at the Palestinian headquarters compound in Ramallah. “And those of us in the United States understand that change takes time but it is also possible, because there was a time when my daughters could not expect to have the same opportunities in their own country as somebody else’s daughters.”

Obama’s comments—which invoked life under Jim Crow in the U.S. or perhaps even under slavery—seemed to give support to Palestinian narratives that describe Arabs and Palestinians as second-class citizens in Israel. That line of criticism deeply angers many Israelis. Some critics of Israel go so far as to use the word apartheid, a word that angers Israelis further. 

But at stops in Jerusalem later on Thursday, Obama invoked the history of African-Americans in the U.S. in ways far more pleasing to Israelis and Jews generally.

During his main speech to the Israeli people, Obama noted how the bible story of the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt and the drive to reach the promised land animated African Americans in the U.S. for ages. He also drew a personal connection to his own life

"To African Americans, the story of the Exodus was perhaps the central story, the most powerful image about emerging from the grip of bondage to reach for liberty and human dignity -- a tale that was carried from slavery through the Civil Rights Movement into today," Obama declared. "For generations, this promise helped people weather poverty and persecution, while holding on to the hope that a better day was on the horizon.  For me, personally, growing up in far-flung parts of the world and without firm roots, the story spoke to a yearning within every human being for a home."

And Thursday night, Obama invoked the history of Jews who worked for racial justice, in particular the Jewish American activists who joined the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

"This story—from slavery to salvation, of overcoming even the most overwhelming odds—is a message that’s inspired the world.  And that includes Jewish Americans but also African Americans, who have so often had to deal with their own challenges, but with whom you have stood shoulder to shoulder," Obama said at a State Dinner held at the residence of Israeli President Shimon Peres.

"African Americans and Jewish Americans marched together at Selma and Montgomery, with rabbis carrying the Torah as they walked.  They boarded buses for freedom rides together.  They bled together.  They gave their lives together -- Jewish Americans like Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner alongside  African American, James Chaney," the U.S. president said.

In the final balancing, Obama may have drawn so many positive parallels between the black and Jewish experiences that most Israelis choose to overlook his use of the same metaphor to imply Palestinians are discriminated against or relegated to "second-class" status.

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/03/in-mideast-obama-returns...