Monday, May 12, 2008

BARACK OBAMA

Gasp!

When Jeffrey Goldberg interviews Barack Obama, the candidate offers some reassuring statements, like this...

When I visited Ramallah, among a group of Palestinian students, one of the things that I said to those students was: “Look, I am sympathetic to you and the need for you guys to have a country that can function, but understand this: if you’re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional. Because my commitment, our commitment, to Israel’s security is non-negotiable.”

... but then out of the blue he offers this:

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I'm not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that's the safest ground politically.

The security of the "constant wound" and "constant sore" that "infects" our foreign policy is non-negotiable. Got it.

UPDATE: Several readers insist that it is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not Israel itself, that Obama is referring to. (I can't help but wonder if Obama's wording is deliberately vague; the question is about Israel, and Obama answers "constant wound" and "constant sore" without specifying that he's referring to the conflict.) Second, I'm not sure how much better the second interpretation is — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "infects all of our foreign policy"? The "lack of a resolution provides an excuse for jihadists"? Jihadists take whatever excuse is within reach; if they weren't outraged by Israel, they would be outraged by Iraq, or U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, or our culture, or economic grievances, or again, whatever excuse was handy. They used to be motivated by U.S. troops on Saudi Arabian soil; but when they left, not one jihadist acknowledged it. 

Beyond that, he seems to be suggesting that one of the main obstacles to peace is "hawkish elements", when I would suggest constant rocket attacks, suicide bombers, refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, and national leaders threatening to wipe Israel off the map might be bigger factors...

Either way, one has to figure that Team Obama didn't want the interview to generate headlines like this from the New York Daily News:

Barack Obama 'understands' Hamas view

05/12 05:35 PMShare