"Barack Obama seems unrepentant over his comments on Israel's border and appears to think that his own personality will be enough to resolve a '100-year-old headache'."
"Striding to the podium inside the Washington Convention Centre, President Barack Obama did his very best to avoid any sense that he felt intimidated by entering what was, in political terms, the lion's den.
There was tepid applause and a couple of isolated boos from the crowd of almost 10,000 members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as Aipac, the premier and most hardline mainstream group in the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
The reception was one of intense scepticism. A vast majority of delegates felt that Mr Obama had a need to explain himself after his comments that a Middle East peace deal should be based on Israel's 1967 border incorporating agreed land swaps with the Palestinians.
But if they thought that the American president was going to take back his words in Thursday's speech at the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters, then
- they were sorely mistaken.
Wagging his finger repeatedly, Mr Obama adopted the manner of a schoolmaster frustrated that his pupils were too dim or inattentive to pay attention to what he had said.
Rather than even acknowledge the artlessness of his 1967 comments, or the fact that he had not prepared the Israeli Government for what he was about to say, his tone was of the "I'm sorry you feel that way" variety of non-apology.
In the Oval Office on Friday, Mr Obama did little to disguise his irritation with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli premier, for turning to him to deliver an impassioned tutorial on Israel's history in the full glare of the cameras.
"It's the ancient nation of Israel," the Likud leader told Mr Obama. "We've been around for almost 4,000 years. We have experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We've gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres
- and the murder of millions."
It was an unprecedented rebuke of an American president by an Israeli premier. Menachem Begin is said to have delivered similar monologues to President Jimmy Carter, but never in public.
Even 48 hours later, it was clear at the Aipac conference that Mr Obama, who is remarkably thin-skinned for a top-flight American politician and has never been lacking in self-regard,
- was still smarting.
When loud applause greeted Mr Obama's mention of Mr Netanyahu's name, the president's eyes narrowed and he chewed his lip.
- He was distinctly unamused.
He went on to repeat, to stony silence, exactly what he had said at Foggy Bottom in an address that the White House anticipated would be heralded around the world for its embrace of people power in the "Arab Spring" uprisings in the Middle East.
"The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states," he said. "The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state."
He did, however, spell out what he had failed to do in his Foggy Bottom speech. He said that a settlement would result in "a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967", the eve of the Six-Day War in which Israel pushed back the forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan and occupied the West Bank and Gaza.
There was even an acknowledgement that a deal would have to take account of "the new demographic realities on the ground" – code for Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, beyond the 1967 lines.
Naturally, in the Aipac speech he uttered the usual lines about the "unbreakable" bonds between the US and Israel, America's "unshakeable" opposition to attempts to chip away at Israel's legitimacy and the "ironclad" US commitment to the security of the Jewish state.
He dropped the names of his prominent Jewish advisers, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod (though both have now departed the White House – Mr Emanuel to be Chicago mayor and Mr Axelrod to direct the 2012 re-election campaign) and
- the new Democratic party chairman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz.
But it was notable that Mr Obama neglected to reject, just as he had at Foggy Bottom, the Palestinian demand for a "right of return".
While the words of the Aipac speech were an improvement for Israelis on those of three days earlier, the question hanging in the air was why they could not have been uttered to a world audience rather than,
- belatedly, to Israeli's staunchest backers.
Although Mr Obama insisted in his Aipac speech that he "wasn't surprised" by the furore created by his decision to become the first American president publicly to state that the 1967 lines should be the starting point in talks,
- there is every indication that the White House was blindsided.
American policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been in turmoil in recent weeks, with George Mitchell, Mr Obama's Middle East envoy, resigning over the White House's decision not to outline a detailed peace plan.
The man who was seen to have prevailed over Mr Mitchell was Dennis Ross, the long-time Middle East adviser to Republican and Democratic administrations, who is Jewish and viewed by Israel as its number one friend at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
In seeking a balance between the Mitchell and Ross factions within his own administration, however,
- Mr Obama failed to take full account of the situation Israel finds itself in.
Although his already healthy self-confidence has been boosted by the death of Osama bin Laden, Israel finds itself facing turmoil across the Arab world, a Palestinian bid for the United Nations to recognise statehood in September and a Palestinian government in which Fatah and Hamas could be united.
In this environment, the prospect of serious peace negotiations is as dim as ever, but Mr Obama appeared to feel that his own personality, political skills and success against the al-Qaeda leader would be enough to resolve what President Harry Truman once described as "the 100-year headache". Personal relations between Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu have always been frosty and White House advisers had been briefing for months that they did not think the Israeli premier would be prepared to take risks for peace.
Some Israelis believe that Mr Obama hoped his words would destabilise Mr Netanyahu's coalition government and bring in Tzipi Livni, the Kadima leader and head of the Israeli opposition, who is viewed in Washington as more flexible and realistic.
The result of the past few days, however, may well be that real Israeli-Palestinian talks have been made more elusive. Mr Netanyahu took a considerable risk in speaking so bluntly to an American head of state. The response from the staunchly pro-Israel American commentator Jeffrey Goldberg was a blog post headlined: "Dear Mr Netanyahu, Please Don't Speak to My President That Way".
But Mr Netanyahu's coalition appears to be solid at the moment and he could emerge stronger from his spat with Mr Obama.
Republican presidential candidates were quick to jump on Mr Obama with over-heated statements, some of which misrepresented his words, either wilfully or ignorantly, by suggesting he was stating that the 1967 borders should be the endpoint of talks. Mitt Romney, viewed by many as the Republican front runner, accused Mr Obama of "throwing Israel under the bus".
Republicans, who are straining to assemble a convincing field of candidates to challenge Mr Obama, will struggle to portray him as weak on foreign policy after bin Laden's demise.
But Mr Obama does remain vulnerable on whether he stands up for American interests abroad following his apologies for past US conduct. Most Americans view Israel as an ally that should be backed to the hilt. If the perception sticks that Mr Obama is prepared to undermine Israeli security, it could be very damaging.
In 2008, 78 per cent of Jewish voters chose Mr Obama over Senator John McCain. That level of support could well ebb between now and 2012. More seriously, there are signs that donations from wealthy Jews, which played a key role in Mr Obama's stratospheric fundraising totals in 2008, will fall off.
Ed Koch, the former New York mayor and a prominent Democrat and Obama donor in 2008, condemned the President for having "sought to reduce Israel's negotiation power", echoing what many other prominent Jewish Democrats have said.
Mr Obama has always made clear that he wants to be not merely an ordinary American president but one to rival Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy.
In spelling out to Israel, as he did at Aipac, what he sees as "the facts we all must confront", no one could accuse him of timidity. He may well, however, have made his own aim of being the great American peacemaker in the Middle East
- much more difficult to achieve."
So it's now viewed as astonishing that anyone would question Obama. Such hasn't been the reaction in recent American politics-- whereas it's common in monarchies and totalitarian dictatorships like the EU and Communist China. No one would have been concerned that a world leader spoke frankly in public to George Bush or even Bill Clinton. It's really not for an American to tell another country what to do about it's borders anyway. ed.
via Lucianne.com
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