November 19, 2008: Al-Qaeda Leader Al-Zawahiri Criticizes President Obama, Calls Him ‘House Negro’

A man thought to be al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a video in which he attacks recently elected US President Barack Obama. In his first speech since Obama’s election, al-Zawahiri speaks in front of pictures of Obama praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem during a pre-election visit to Israel, and African-American leader Malcolm X, who was murdered in 1965. The speech contrasts Obama with Malcolm X, who al-Zawahiri refers to as an “honorable” African-American and who is shown in video footage in the background. In one of his speeches, Malcolm X used the term “house negroes” in reference to domestic slaves who were considered more docile towards their masters than the field slaves. “It is true about you and people like you… what Malcolm X said about the house negroes,” al-Zawahiri says, referencing former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor Condoleezza Rice. “You represent the opposite to honorable black Americans like… Malcolm X.” He attacks Obama for “choosing to be an enemy of Islam and Muslims,” saying that the Muslim nation “had bitterly received” Obama’s support for Israel. “You have chosen to stand in the ranks of the enemies of Muslims and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim that your mother is Christian,” al-Zawahiri adds. The video also includes a warning about switching troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, which Obama has pledged to do. “What you have announced before… that you will withdraw [US] troops from Iraq [and send them] to Afghanistan is a policy that is doomed to failure,” says al-Zawahiri. “If you still want to be stubborn about America’s failure in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of [former US President George W.] Bush and [former Pakistani President] Pervez Musharraf, and the fate of the Soviets and British before them.” [Times (London), 11/19/2008]