MOHAMMED BIN ZAYED ON PRESIDENT'S SPEECH

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABU DHABI 000565 SIPDIS FOR S AND S/SRAP HOLBROOKE ALSO FOR NEA and NEA/ARP E.O. 12958: 06/06/2019 TAGS: PREL AE SUBJECT: MOHAMMED BIN ZAYED ON PRESIDENT'S SPEECH CLASSIFIED BY AMBASSADOR RICHARD G. OLSON FOR REASONS 1.4 B AND D. ¶1. (C) During a June 6 meeting with Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) offered the following commentary on the President's 4 June speech in Cairo. -- He had expected an "excellent" speech, and the speech was better than expected. It was an outstanding speech. -- His only concern was that the President had raised the bar of expectations, both for America and for the Middle East. He was not so confident that the (Arab) Middle East would meet US expectations. He was not at all confident that the Netanyahu government would meet the expectations. -- With regard to the Arab/Islamic world: ten percent of the population favored working with the US, ten percent would never be satisfied with the US; eighty percent were in the middle and "can be won" and mobilized against the ten percent who were "spreading poison." -- MbZ expressed disappointment at the reaction of Amr Moussa, which he characterized as "Good speech, but . . ." And similarly, if not surprisingly, he was disappointed with the begrudging tone of prominent Muslim Brotherhood cleric and Al Jazeera commentator Yusuf Qaradawi. OLSON