Did Obama Take a Page Out of HRC's Playbook on Jerusalem?

Reuters is reporting angry Palestinian reaction to Barack Obama's statement yesterday at AIPAC that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." In response Mahmoud Abbas told reporters, "This statement is totally rejected," and Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said Obama "has closed all doors to peace."

Saying "Jerusalem" and "undivided" in the same sentence is an easy applause line at AIPAC, but we have to remember that when it comes to statements about Jerusalem, syntax is everything. In her official statement on Jerusalem, Hillary Clinton went so far as to use the words "undivided" and "capital" in the same clause: "Hillary Clinton believes that Israel's right to exist ... with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital ... must never be questioned." But as was pointed out to me in April, even Hillary's stronger formulation left some wiggle room:

Well, [Clinton's statement] is strong, but if people are determined to be a little bit creative in the way they interpret these things, ‘undivided' sometimes literally means 'don't put the barbwire back up,'" said William Quandt, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a longtime observer of America's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. "In 1967 there was a divided Jerusalem," he added, referring to the period before the 1967 war when Jerusalem was physically divided, a state of affairs to which no one wants to return.

Bottom line: The Jerusalem bit was hardly the worst section of Obama's address, which Dana Milbank described today as the "full Monty" of "a pandering performance."

Comments

Well it ought to shut up anybody about a Hamas endorsement anyway.

Posted by: Michael Z. on 06/05/08 at 4:57 PM Respond

Well it ought to shut up anybody about a Hamas endorsement anyway.

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Exactly. Kinda like a knee-jerk reaction by a worried Obama, huh? He'll be giving 'ol Castro a ticking-off next...

Posted by: raphael ryan on 06/06/08 at 1:51 AM Respond

So much for talking to the world?

Jeeze.

If we're going to "talk" to people like that, nobody's going to want to talk to us.

I hope this was a fluke, I really hope this isn't going to be what we see from now on.

Or we're far more screwed than I thought.

Posted by: Todd on 06/06/08 at 8:23 AM Respond

What a disappointment. The fact that other politicians all pander to AIPAC is not the issue. Senator Obama has run on a change ticket, one that promotes dialogue rather than bellicose war mongering. His comments on Jerusalem indicate that he is offering more of the same. One might also ask the question - why does AIPAC have such a stranglehold on US politics? When will Americans wake up and recognize that right wing Israeli interests are not our own?

Posted by: Mark on 06/07/08 at 5:48 PM Respond

Obama votes for war funding and Americans die, children die, women die. Obama has blood on his hands. Vote Libertarian to end the war.

Posted by: John on 06/09/08 at 10:25 AM Respond

I was so disappointed to read this. I let it slide that Obama only offered a paragraph to the the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in The Audacity of Hope, but he obviously has no idea what he's talking about. I'm not voting for Obama, I'm voting against McCain.

Posted by: Mia on 06/09/08 at 1:49 PM Respond

Obama went further, including a deeply troubling reference to Jerusalem which he said "will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." Left unexplained, this was both unnecessarily provocative and contradictory. If the U.S. is not to "force concessions," then why predetermine the status of Jerusalem, one of the more sensitive and complicated issues in the negotiations, in a speech to AIPAC? And if Palestinians need a state that is "contiguous," "cohesive" and "prosperous," how does that occur when one has cut the heart out of the center of the West Bank? (Note: it has been a Palestinian position that Jerusalem can "remain the capital of Israel" and can "remain undivided" as long as that does not preclude the Palestinians from also having their capital in a "shared" city.)

The AIPAC audience may have cheered, but Arabs, from East Jerusalem, where they were watching the speech on TV, were deeply disheartened, as were Israeli peace activists .

Posted by: Steven on 06/10/08 at 12:02 PM Respond