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My father, who I didn't know, returned to Kenya when I was just two. That's why pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes and organizations like World Vision and Catholic Charities are wielding their enormous influence to confront poverty, HIV/AIDS, and the genocide in Darfur. I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. That is why we are forging service projects in America that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam.
God is still speaking. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. We know that is God's vision.
They must be pursued - and they must be defeated. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors - found the courage to keep it alive. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We know that is God's vision.
He was nominally a Muslim since there were a number of Muslims in the village where he was born. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. Because that was the cheapest way to eat. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."
Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.