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News Tip: Muslims Seek Actionable Plans in Obama's Upcoming Address, Duke Professor Says

Muslims worldwide will closely monitor President Obama's address from Egypt Thursday, looking for assurances that the Obama administration will continue its efforts to substantively engage with the Muslim world, says a Duke University sociologist.

"President Obama is going to have to lay out some actionable plans with a clear time-line for carrying them through with regard to withdrawal from Iraq, the Middle East peace process and engagement with Muslims worldwide," said Jen'nan Read, an associate professor of sociology and global health at Duke.

"Anything short of this will ring hollow to the ears of Muslims in the Middle East. They want to see real change and real movement toward change."

Read is a Carnegie scholar currently studying the political integration and activity of U.S. Muslims and the author of "Culture, Class and Work Among Arab-American Women" (LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2004). She says the speech could be a catalyst toward mending relations with Muslim populations around the world.

"The U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is far from a chance to ‘reset' Western-Muslim relations. It would be more appropriate to think of it as one step forward after several steps back during the past administration's era. There will need to be several more steps forward before relations can be started anew.

"The biggest hurdle and largest step the current president faces is the same one faced by his predecessors -- establishing peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Muslims will be looking for evidence that the Obama administration is not just talk, but actual change in terms of policy."