Israel, Jews and Obama
Bookworm on Jun 06 2008 at 8:14 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, Israel, Jews
Mona Charen provides ample evidence proving that the 61% of American Jews who claim to support both Israel and Obama are suffering from dangerous cognitive dissonance — and she didn’t even include the mere 24 hours it took for Obama to flip-flop on Jerusalem.
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I’ve been investigating the Jerusalem flip-flop, to try to see beyond the single sentence that most web-sites are publicizing.
This seems to be the best summary of the situation, and it *appears* to show that Obama’s position is no different from that of Presidents Bush and Clinton. Since this summary is from AP, it is immediately suspect, of course! Suspect especially in claiming to state anything about a position of President Bush. But here’s the summary:
“Obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues,” Obama told CNN. “And Jerusalem will be part of the negotiations.” He added that he remains opposed to division of the city.
“My belief is that as a practical matter it would be very difficult to execute,” he said. “I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in old Jerusalem, but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city.”
THE FACTS:
Obama is trying to have it both ways, but there is nothing new about that. So does President Bush. President Clinton did, too.
A 1995 U.S. law recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered the U.S. embassy to move to Jerusalem from a neutral site in nearby Tel Aviv.
Using their presidential power, Clinton and then Bush have routinely suspended the relocation of the embassy while saying the U.S. is still committed to doing it. Bush issued the latest waiver just this week.
At the same time, both the Clinton and Bush administrations considered Jerusalem a matter for negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians, just as Obama said he would do.
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So it seems to me that this is just a case of yet another extraordinarily cynical political ploy, but utterly typical of American politicians when it comes to the Middle East…
This particular political ploy appears extremely well managed. I see it as a “Sister Souljah moment”. Clearly the Palestinian leadership was outraged by this “betrayal” of Obama’s. I’m sure the subsequent flip-flop soothed their ruffled feathers. “Oh, more of the usual weak stupidity that we get from every American leader” is what they probably concluded.