It speaks volumes about AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that Obama and Hillary came to address the group the momentous day after Obama secured the requisite number of delegates to effectively win the nomination.

Obama is a very effective speaker. He controlled the crowd like a real pro. I was there and it was hard not to be impressed. He assured the crowd that all of those e-mails scaring the Jewish community are not true, and that he is a friend of Israel. He repeated all of the same assurances that all of the other speakers addressing the conference gave: no nukes for Iran, the rockets fired into Sderot from Gaza must stop, terrorism must stop, the captured Israeli soldiers must be returned, etc, etc.

Yet all of his presecriptions for remolding the Midddle East and “fixing” Bush’s mistakes are all currently being pursued and have been pursued since before Bush. Madeline Albright did negotiate with Iran- poorly. Our objective is to get a secure government established in Iraq, with them taking more repsonsibility for their own defense. He spoke as if no one thought of any of this before.

What he did not address was the number of advisors he has selected that are somewhat hostile to Israeli interests. We are supposed to ignore Reverend Wright and his praise of Farrakhan, who calls Jews ‘parasites’. We are also supposed to think that Zbigniew Brzezinski is not a significant factor, although this leftover from the horrendous Carter foreign policy team pays homage to the discredited Walt and Mearsheimer canard “The Israel Lobby” and refers to pro Israel lobbyists as ‘McCarthyites’.

We are also supposed to ignore the anti semitic statements of his other advisors like Tony McPeak, Robert Malley, or Samantha Power who had accused Israel of unfounded atrocities and war crimes in its campaign against the second intifada (she resigned from Obama’s staff after calling Hillary a ‘monster’)

And most recently David Bonior represented Obama in Michigan. Bonior represents a largely Muslim section of Detroit and has opposed many pro Israel positions in the Congress.

I have been told that these are just advisors and that their history and positions do not reflect Obama’s. What bullshit. These people were selected and approved by Obama, and I have a hard time believing it is because he disagrees with their viewpoint.

Each one of these asosciations can be ‘explained’ away or rationalized, but after enough of them it is hard to ignore a pattern, or at least a tolerance for viewpoints that many American Jews would find disturbing. Yet we are supposed to ignore these associations while AIPAC board member Lee Rosenberg and even Hillary Clinton, who spoke after Obama, assures us he will support Israel.

Obama remarks have concerned many anti Israeli constituencies and this may hurt him, but he realizes the importantance of the Jewish vote, particularly in critical blue states like Florida (Ok pink or purple maybe), Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New York.

What Jewish support that remains for Obama is very fragile. If during the coming months of getting to know Barak, we find that his (or his wife’s) ties with the likes of Farakhan (rumors with no substance… yet) and other anti Semites are closer than we have been led to believe his Jewish support will evaporate and McCain will get more Jewish support than even Reagan. While only anecdotal I have heard from many Jews (some at the AIPAC conference), particularly elderly Jews, that is spite of being lifelong Democrats, they can not and will not vote for Obama.

HKO
PS- For another, yet similar view of the Obama speech from another AIPAC attendee read Peggy Shapiro’s article in American Thinker , Obama at AIPAC:Too Much Room for Doubt.

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