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Ben Carson, whose presidential campaign has been stymied with questions about his depth on foreign policy, addressed one of the most influential Republican Jewish organizations on Thursday but probably left few there with much confidence that his knowledge is growing.

He repeatedly mispronounced the name of the extremist group Hamas, saying something that sounded more like hummus.

He read from prepared remarks for the entire half-hour that he spoke, rushing through his words with his head tilted toward the lectern. He rarely made eye contact with his audience.

The speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, which was part history lesson on the Middle East conflict and part observational narrative about Mr. Carson’s own take on the underpinnings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was full of generalities, and came as he faced increasing questions about his lack of knowledge of foreign policy.

“The world is complicated, the Middle East is even more complicated,” he said at one point.

Before he began speaking, he acknowledged that he knew he had to leave a favorable impression, saying: “I will actually be using a script. It may be the first time anybody has seen me doing that.”

The speech spanned a range of topics, from circumcision to the United Nations to his own recent trip to Israel, during which he said he toured the tunnels that Palestinian terrorists use as a way to mount assaults against Israel. He added that he worried he might be shot.

“I actually had a chance to go into some of those tunnels when I was there last year,” he said. “Although we were carefully looking for people who might be trying to shoot us when we came out.”

The reviews of some there were not favorable.

“Poor Ben Carson,” Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W. Bush, said on Twitter:

Poor Ben Carson. Someone should have told him how to pronounce Hamas. He sounds like he's not familiar with the group. — Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) December 3, 2015