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There are two sides to everything Obama says.
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| By Israel Insider staff June 6, 2008 |
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Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama did not preclude Palestinian sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem, or the possibility of the city being the capital of Palestine when he called for Israel's capital to remain "undivided," his campaign clarified.
"Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," Obama thundered Wednesday, earning an ovation from the 7,000-plus attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference.
On CNN the following day, however, he was singing a different tune. "Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations," he said when asked whether Palestinians had no future claim to the city. Obama said "as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute" a division of the city. "And I think that it is smart for us to -- 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."
From declaring that Jerusalem should remain Israel's undivided capital to conceding that "Israel has a legitimate claim on that city" in one day -- oh, what a difference a day makes! And: oh, what a difference an audience makes!
A campaign adviser further clarified to the Jerusalem Post Thursday that what Obama really meant is that "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." The adviser explained that "two principles should apply to any outcome," which were: "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 claim by itself is problematic: the United States does not recognize Jerusalem -- even the Western part of the city -- as Israel's capital, and has consistently refused to move its Embassy there. Obama was not challenged on whether he, like many presidential candidates in the past, would promised to move the embassy to the place he recognized as Israel's capital.
The adviser refused, however, to rule out the possibility city would also serve as the capital of a Palestinian state or that the Palestinians would be sovereign over neighborhoods of the city, nor did he take a stand with respect to the position of the Old City and the holy places.
"Beyond those principles, all other aspects are for the two parties to agree at final status negotiations," the Obama adviser said, non-committally.
Many on the right of the political spectrum among America's Jews had welcomed Obama's remarks at AIPAC, but the subsequent "clarification" of his position left some disenchanted at yet another example of the candidate's backtracking.
"The Orthodox Union is extremely disappointed in this revision of Senator Obama's important statement about Jerusalem," said Nathan Diament, director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. He had sent out a release Wednesday applauding Obama's Jerusalem remarks in front of AIPAC. "In the current context, everyone understands that saying 'Jerusalem... must remain undivided' means that the holy city must remain unified under Israeli rule, as it has been since 1967," Diament explained. "If Senator Obama intended his remarks at AIPAC to be understood in this way, he said nothing that would reasonably lead to such a different interpretation."
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America and another Jewish activist who had originally lauded Obama's statement, now called the candidate's words "troubling."
"It means he used the term inappropriately, possibly to mislead strong supporters of Israel that he supports something he doesn't really believe," Klein charged.
But congressman Robert Wexler, a Democrat from Florida with ties to the Jewish community and a long-time supporter of Obama, rejected the idea that the Illinois senator had been misleading with his comments. "Everyone knows that Jerusalem is a final status issue. That is not a secret to anyone. Senator Obama says emphatically that should the Israelis and the Palestinians negotiate [an agreement], he will respect their conclusions and that he will not dictate a particular resolution."
Left-wing groups were reassured by the Obama campaign's clarification. "There was reaction from some of our base who were taken aback by it and thought he was undermining the peace process," said Americans for Peace Now spokesman Ori Nir, who described his organization as "gratified" by the clarified position which seems to follow APN's policy that Jerusalem should be shared in a final solution.
Palestinian factions had been troubled by the speech's language on an undivided Jerusalem. "This statement is totally rejected," said Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, whom a top aide described as "disappointed" by the remark: "The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state," the West Bank chieftain said.
Speaking generally about the speech, which also stressed the importance of a secure Israel and the need to isolate Hamas, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters: "Obama's comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the US administration's foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict." |
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