What Is This World Coming To?

Obama’s address to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) got a resounding round of applause from his audience for his statement that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain ‘undivided.’

Obama received a half-dozen standing ovations for his comments, more than any other dignitary on the platform, including Hillary Clinton and John McCain. So it would appear that, after a whole bunch of gaffes, Obama’s speechwriters hit a home run this time. Or not.

Instead, Obama simply highlighted (again) is abysmal grasp of foreign policy. It seems he forgot that the Palestinians can read.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, went ballistic at Obama’s remarks. He told reporters at a hastily-convented press conference in Ramallah:

“This statement is totally rejected. The whole world knows that East Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem, was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.”

Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said Palestinian negotiators engaged in U.S.-sponsoredpeace talks would continue to insist on securing East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, as their capital. He said of Obama: “He has closed all doors to peace.”

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zhuri took back its previous endorsement of Obama’s candidacy, saying,

“Obama’s comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians,” he said. “Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win.”

(Actually, Zhuri is wrong. The current administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict demands that Jerusalem be divided as a shared capital for both states. Obama’s statement puts him to the right of George W. Bush.)

Ooops! Time for another ‘do-over’. Yesterday, he had already begun to back-pedal, as he did when he first pledged to meet any dictator, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kim Jong il, ‘without preconditions.’ Later, when he realized how stupid that sounded, he said that he wouldn’t demand ‘preconditions’ but instead would require a lot of advance preparation that sounds suspiciously like preconditions.

Now, Obama is similarly ‘clarifiying‘ his comments over Jerusalem. Obama now believes:

“Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.”

“Two principles should apply to any outcome,” which the adviser gave as: “Jerusalem remains Israel’s capital and it’s not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967.”

THAT’S what I like about Barack Obama. If you disagree with his positions, you don’t have to get mad. You don’t even have to get even. You just have to wait until he changes to one you can be more comfortable with.