Wednesday, June 04, 2008

BARACK OBAMA

More Obama at AIPAC: "There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorists..."

The speech is largely a set of promises to defend Israel - to defend the nation at the United Nations, etc. — which is all fine and dandy, and getting standard-issue applause from the crowd, but not really addressing why pro-Israel Americans are nervous about Obama — i.e., his pledge to meet with Mahmoud, Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip organizing phone banks on behalf of Obama, the campaign manager of the candidate says he's "flattered" by the Hamas spokesman's comparison of the candidate to John Kennedy, Hamas praising the candidate...

"Real security can only come when we do all we can to help Israel and its neighbors achieve a lasting peace." Entirely missing from Obama's discussion of this is the number of Palestinians who would rather die that recognize Israeli's right to exist.

"We must isolate Hamas until they recognize Israel's right to exist."

It would have helped if Obama had told adviser Rob Malley that before he resigned the campaign after revelations he was secretly meeting with Hamas.

"There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorists..." Again, many Americans will not understand why it's then okay to go to the negotiating table with terrorist-supporter Iran.

AFP caption: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president (L) pledges funds to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas.

Once again, we observe that Obama contends a face-to-face summit with the guy on the left is long overdue; a face-to-face summit with the guy on the right is crazy talk.

UPDATE: Fairly well in, he addresses Iran. "just as we must be clear about the threat, we must be clear about the failure of today's policy." He says the invasion of Iraq "fanned the flames of extremism in the Middle East." (I don't know, I think "the flames of extremism" burned pretty healthy all the way back to 1979, whether the U.S. was militarily engaged in the region or not.)

06/04 10:42 AMShare