The AIPAC Policy Conference: A Report from a Press Reception
Tomorrow morning President Barack Obama addresses the AIPAC policy conference, which I will be reporting on for PJ Media. Having just returned from a press reception held near the D.C. Convention Center, I had the chance to talk with members of the working press, as well as some Israelis. What I heard — and I note that these are completely unconfirmed rumors that might not be completely accurate — coincides with Roger L. Simon’s speculations on his blog. Roger noted that Saturday’s New York Times story about Dennis Ross and George Mitchell portrays Ross as essentially being too pro-Israel and Mitchell being virulently anti-Israel. The reporters emphasized that “Mr. Ross made clear that he was opposed to having Mr. Obama push Israel by putting forth a comprehensive American plan for a peace deal with the Palestinians, according to officials involved in the debate.” Mitchell, the story said, “argued in favor of a comprehensive American proposal that would include borders, security and the fate of Jerusalem and refugees. But Mr. Ross balked, administration officials said, arguing that it was unwise for the United States to look as if it were publicly breaking with Israel.”
The story continues to say this:
Mr. Netanyahu and Israel’s backers in the United States view Mr. Ross as a key to holding at bay what they see as pro-Palestinian sympathies expressed by Mr. Mitchell; Mr. Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; and even the president himself.
“Starting with Mitchell and Jones, there was a preponderance of advisers who were more in tune with the Palestinian narrative than the Israeli narrative,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a friend of Mr. Ross. “Dennis balanced that.”
The story goes on to note that Ross had proposed a generous package to Israel that the president balked at. Mitchell, “who, one Arab official said, often held up the specter of Mr. Ross to the Palestinians as an example of whom they would end up with if he left, sent Mr. Obama a letter of resignation.”
The Times story, Roger notes, squashed Ross totally, making him out to be an impediment, and revealing inadvertently that Ross was better than many expected him to be. Just tonight my wife and I talked with one noted observer who commented that he thought Ross had no integrity; that he ought to resign after Obama gave his recent speech. Neither that person nor I had read the story until I returned to my hotel and saw Roger’s blog.
But another journalist told us that she had spoken with an Israeli source with solid contacts in the Israeli government. That source told her, she said, that George Mitchell was asked to resign because he had wanted the United States to essentially go all the way and advocate an open pro-Palestinian policy, including instituting sanctions against the Israeli government unless it gave way and agreed to demands of the Abbas government in the West Bank. The source told her that Obama would not go along with that, and as a result, Mitchell felt his role was over and his resignation was asked for.
What really happened between Ross, Mitchell, and Obama will certainly come out eventually. Perhaps Dennis Ross, now compromised by the NYT story and obviously frustrated at Obama’s direction in policy, might himself soon feel compelled to resign, or perhaps also be forced out by the request of the president.
At any rate, it promises to be a highly charged AIPAC policy conference. My report on the president’s speech and reaction to it will be filed tomorrow morning.
Someone at the conference should press Obama on Netanyahu’s very public rejection of what he saw as essential elements of Obama’s speech and policy. Was Netanyahu’s interpretation of administration policy correct? If so, then what is the administration going to do about the rejection? What is the administration’s position on refugees and the “right of return”? What did Obama mean when he described a future Palestinian state as consisting of contiguous territory in his speech and again in the presence of Netanyahu? With regard to contiguity, what is the status of Gaza and is a bisected Israel actually seen as a legitimate policy goal within the administration via land swaps? Who within the administration vetted his speech?
Good that you brought up the word “contiguous”. An uninterrupted, uncontrolled land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank would be a security disaster for Israel. As Bibi said, not gonna happen!”
My guess is that Obama didn’t disagree with Mitchell’s position, just his timing.
If O came out with a totally pro-Palestinian position including sanctions–or even threatened sanctions–against Israel before November 2012, I see no way that he could be re-elected. But if O is re-elected, I think we see where he will go.
As a Christian whose sympathies lie strongly with Israel, I pray O is not re-elected.
Obama will be rude if they allow him in. AIPAC should meet him at the door and say he is not welcome.
I do not believe *any* of this anonymously leaked crap-o-la. There are way too many people (especially in this administration) interested in spinning events for their own political benefit, and way too few interested in telling the truth.
I’m sorry, I may have missed it.
Did Obama cancel all future NASA missions and ask those folks instead to launch a Jewish outreach program?
Is the LA Times holding onto a tape that shows Obama in a compromising position, uttering compromising words about the way Jews have been treated since the WORLD granted them a place of their own to put down their heads at night.
Did Obama sit in a pew, every Sunday, at 11:00 and listen to a preacher spout vile anti-Muslim, or anti-Arab insults…and with these very vocal “leanings” become a father figure, a mentor and his closest advisor?
Did Obama’s first speech in the region come in Jerusalem? At that speech did Obama intimate that the call for a Palestinian state by the world, in a spasm of misplaced sympathy for their “plight” was a grand mistake?
When Obama visits with the head of state of Israel, do we have pictures of a deep bow?
Did Obama leave an Arab leader to dine alone at the White House?
In viewing the history of the people that Obama has placed in charge of his inner circle on foreign policy in the Mideast, from his campaign onward….Robert Malley, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Mitchell and Jones…which has the longest history and warmest feelings toward Israel over the Palestinians?
Did Obama recently make a speech to the State Department suggesting that Palestinians ought to revert back to the Balfour Declaration, when they did not even exist and were merely a creation of British Jew hatred and Arab intentional distortion?
I apologize for missing these things…and await with bated breath the pronouncements of the bracing strength of such luminaries as Abe Foxman and the American leftist media to set matters straight. Heaven knows they have not been slobbering sycophants for the continuing leftist obliteration of truth about the history of the region and the safety, security and welfare of Israel and the Jewish people.
cfbleachers is correct on every point. Obama revealed his intentions in Audacity of Hope. You just had to know the code to predict his policy. I wrote about that here: http://clarespark.com/2009/09/11/oil-politics-and-obamas-view-of-israeli-history/. Israel has always stood alone, and will continue to do so. Any American president who professes friendship makes that “friendship” contingent on Israel playing ball with America’s continued dependence on Mid-East oil.
Excellent. And very well written.
Well said CF. It’s past time for Jewish Americans to get a clue. The son of Hussein is not their friend.
“Liberal Jews prioritize their liberalism over any kind of meaningful Jewish identity, and they will vote for Obama and the Democrats next year as they do without fail every couple of years”.
Mark Steyn
Sadly, the AIPAC delegates will in large numbers do as they are told today by the court Jews who run the organization. Expect to see them give O a standing ovation. Then the Jewish Democrats will tell their constituents, “See, even AIPAC applauded O, so you can vote for him with a clear conscience.” This sadly is the state of the American Jewish community. But it was no different during the 1930s and 40s when the American Jewish community turned their backs on Jews facing extermination in Europe; it will be no different as the Jewish-backed and funded O places Israel in the vise.
So Mitchell resigned, but does Powers, who might be the future Secretary of State, hold essentially the same line on Israel?
Powers would gleefully hand out candy when Israel is blown to smithereens. She’s as anti-Semitic as they come. And wife to Cass Sunstein.
what a disgrace this speech was
first off– what was up with the “shilliness” of the audience?; applauding at any notion of obama saying “i like israel; ‘rosy’ is my buddy,” applause applause; “israel has a right to exist,” applause applause
typical noncommittal rhetoric; pandering to the “aggrieved” victim group of the hour; vague and often contradictory statements regarding “peace” and “universal rights..” and “international cooperation”
how was one selected to be in the audience of this speech?
there was no outcry of the hypocrisy of obama’s claiming israel’s right to exist yet, simultaneously, a need to reduce the size of israel in order to expedite peace
what a transparent farce
Very well said!
Israel, like the rest of us, has to survive the Obama administration. It won’t be easy. I read Dennis Ross’s account of the Clinton negotiations in 2000 with Arafat and Barak. He knows the Palestinians will not accept peace.
George Mitchell is the man who, as Senate majority leader, led a filibuster of a capital gains tax cut in order to defeat George Bush and, incidentally, bring on a recession in 1991. No one should expect him to decide any issue on its merits.
I wonder about the AIPAC leadership. A few years ago Mitchell was selected by AIPAC to be the featured speaker at a number of AIPAC functions in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ross has never explained his self-contradictary statements:
1)At Taba we were extremely close to a final peace settlement
2) You could never make a peace settlement with Arafat.
We keep talking about this as if it were solely a moral issue and a political issue, but what about the cold-blooded strategic consequences?
Regardless of other matters. Israel is one of our most valuable strategic allies. With the drift of Egypt and especially Turkey into the Islamist camp, Israel hold the Eastern Mediterranean, the gateway to the oil-producing regions, for the West. With the diminution of Israel as an ally, the West is rolled back to Greece, at best.
Furthermoe, the assumption of our government is that Israel is a client state fo the US and can never be anything but. On the contrary, with the fraying of the US and NATO (such at is) relationship, Israel loses its obstacle to selling technology, especially military technology, to China and Russia.
In return for selling out Israel, what does the US gain? Peace in the Middle East? Hamas has already made clear that they will never accept Israel and views this as nothing more than a great strategic victory in their war against Israel and the West in general? An alliance with Arab countries? They will see this as the US growing weaker and Hamas and Jihadi Islam growing stronger, which pushes them away from the US, not closer.
In short, pursuing the Obama strategy is a loss across the board for the US and the West, and huge gain for the Islamists, with great potential gain for China and the US.
Sorry about the typos, and the grammar and syntax errors. I meant to hit the “Preview” button and instead hit the “Submit” button.
To clarify, the last word in the last sentence should be “Russia,” not “the US.”
This information shows Obama`s weak preparation of his acts.The anti-Israel position of J.Mitchell is defined by his Lebanese origin but Dennis Ross` attitude have hampered Obama`s plan (for a time).
George Mitchell used to tell his Arab ancestry as a feature. I haven’t heard about that in a long time.
It is telling that Obama places the burden (and blame) on Israel not on Hamas. I think supporters of Israel should stop taking Obama seriously. He is a twit.
Obama must be relied upon to veto the Palestinian’s motion for a State at the Security Concil in September. I hope that he is not too mch of a ‘twit’ to not carry out that pledge.
The Jewish people have survived Hitler, Obama is easy.
I wonder how many Jews actually voted for Hitler.
Besides strategic importance, Israel shares technology with the U.S. that helps our military. Drones that are used in Afghanistan and Pakistan were developed in Israel. Tanks use material that explodes outward, not harming soldiers- that was developed in Israel. Medical advances and training in the field that saves soldiers’ lives is given by Israel, with U.S. military coming to Israel for that training. Many police forces from U.S. cities come for homeland security training. Israel saves U.S. lives, while the Arabs kill U.S. soldiers and state clearly that the U.S. and the West is the enemy of Islam. Our whole world is held hostage by Islamc terrorists (started by Palestinians), yet the president chooses this unstable time to pressure Israel!
It seems that practically no one knows or cares that when Britain was granted a Mandate over the Turkish Colony of Palestine by the League of Nation it was specifially for the purpose of, “creating a homeland for the Jewish people.” It was not to be part of Engand for the British to rule and do with whatever4 they wanted.
They had no right to give 77% of the Mandate to the Hashem Tribe from Saudia Atabia. No one said they could do it, and no one approved of the action.
It was plain treachery and a screwing of the Jewish people by the anti-Semites in th British Foreign office.
The weak kneed Jews did not scream bloody murder. Even if they did I doubt if anyone would have taken up their cause.
The Brits left 23% of the Mandate so the Jewish people could have a little Area for thwemselves. Even this was too much for the world.
The UN after a long hard battle allowed the Jewish people 10% of what they should have received and gave the Arabs 13% of the Mandate so as to have two Arab countries where there should have been none. The Arabs didn’t want another country there. They Just wanted the Jews dead, and tried to “throw the Jews into the sea and have the streets run red with Jewish blood”
They weren’t able to do that then, so they tried twice more.
They are still sworn to do that. Much of the world wants to help them and that seems to include Obama.
When The Jews of thw Warsaw ghetto were finally able to to stop quarreling omong themselves and realized it was not a question of whether they died, but how they died, they made a gallant but doomed defense.
Israel may be approaching the same situation now.
The Aabs still loudly state the want to massacre the Jews, so what sense does it make to make any kind of treaty with them if they don’t give up that aim.
After WWII the Jewish rallying cry was, “never again.”
Now is no time to retreat from that position.
Harvey Rogers
No matter what Obama does, he always remains the biggest TWIT of all. I surely hope our country
can survive this president. He is doing so much damage. He spends way too much, and has never, ever brought the country together like he promised. He seems to enjoy setting people up against each other. It seems it is all about him. He has no use for the USA, and all he really cares about is golf and perks of the White House.
After decades of this wrangling, I can’t believe that anybody thinks that the Palis will accept peace with Israel. They’re not willing to accept anything other than a single-state solution. Everybody – even Obama – knows this. So they’re really engaging in this two-step for other reasons. Perhaps to maintain access to middle-east oil while fending off the military clash that nobody wants? Nothing much can happen while negotiations continue, so let’s keep negotiating . . . going over and over the same ground, decade after decade.
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