Spin does not change facts

The media this weekend is filled with stories about reactions to the president's speech on the middle east, particularly his call for Israel to negotiate a Palestinian state based upon the 1967 borders. The media has trotted out the "useful idiots", who in this case are Jews who want to minimize what Obama has done. Jeffrey Goldberg writing in the Atlantic says that Obama's position is nothing new; in fact, it has been around for at least 12 years according to Goldberg. Various people at the DNC are telling the media that most Jews who contribute to the Democrats have said that they will continue on as before. Other Jewish liberal commentators have said Obama should be praised for offering such a clear vision of peace in the Middle East. (I think this last group must be on drugs.)

The key to all this talk, however, is a story that comes out of Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has announced that it is prepared to resume negotiations with Israel, but only if Israel first agrees to the 1967 borders as the basis for a Palestinian state. Let's explore this a bit further. Obama announces that the 1967 borders should be the basis for negotiation. This is the first time an American president has ever said this (Goldberg can write what he wants in the Atlantic -- he is just plain wrong.) Now the Palestinians have the perfect situation. They do not have to negotiate anything with Israel to get the 1967 borders; they just say that it is a precondition and wait for the US to pressure the Israelis to comply. Put another way, the Palestinians get the borders they want without even having to agree to Israel's right to exist or an end to hostilities. That is the kind of peace agreement that Chamberlain negotiated with Hitler in Munich in 1938; Britain and France forced the Czechs to give up the Sudetenland in exchange for Hitler's promise of peace, but the Czechs got nothing in return. That peace, of course ended a few months later when the Germans took the rest of Czechoslovakia without so much as a peep out of the rest of the world.

My guess is that what we are seeing here is major damage control by the Obamacrats. I find it hard to believe that Jews who support Israel could watch Obama do all of this damage and then go on contributing to his re-election campaign. Oh, there will be some who will keep contributing, but I believe that this constituency, like unions, will give much less to the Obamacrats this time than in 2008. Indeed, if there is a big enough response to the Obama speech that it becomes apparent that Obama made a major foreign policy mistake, it could become a tsunami that will carry Jewish support away from Obama.

Obama got over 70% of the Jewish vote in 2008. A swing to just 50-50 in 2012 would make it much harder for Obama to win again in Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. A drop off in political contributions might also put a mjor crimp in the Obama effort. Let's hope so.

Obama has got to go.