Is Obama's Israel Position On The 1967 Lines Making Democrats Nervous?

Adam Kredo of the Washington Jewish Week started the ball rolling with the headline AIPAC accuses PA of 'engaging in diplomatic warfare' against Israel:

The nation's top pro-Israel lobby came out swinging against the Palestinian Authority today, accusing it of deliberately torpedoing peace talks and "engaging in diplomatic warfare" against Israel. 

In a rare press release, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee slammed PA President Mahmoud Abbas for setting "onerous preconditions" for peace negotiations with Israel.

"The Palestinians," AIPAC writes in a public memo, "have now stepped up their preconditions by demanding that Israel publicly commit that a Palestinian state will be based on the pre-June 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps."

The PA, AIPAC contends, has repeatedly rebuffed American and Israeli pleas for it to return to the bargaining table.

"During the past two years," AIPAC says, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has taken far-reaching steps toward substantive talks with the Palestinians-calling for a Palestinian state, reducing barriers to movement in the West Bank and implementing the 10-month moratorium on new West Bank housing construction. 

Instead of capitalizing on Israel's good will, the PA has chosen "reconciliation with Hamas," a terrorist group, laments AIPAC. "Fatah appears to have decided to reconcile with Hamas rather than abide by its peace commitments to Israel, under which it is required to fight terror. Incorporating an unreformed Hamas into the PA makes it impossible for the Palestinians to meet these commitments."

The pro-Israel juggernaut adds: "By avoiding negotiations and seeking recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital, the Palestinians are violating past agreements with Israel that say the conflict must be solved through direct negotiations between the parties."

The AIPAC's key sentence is

The Palestinians have now stepped up their preconditions by demanding that Israel publicly commit that a Palestinian state will be based on the pre-June 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps."

What AIPAC is condemning in the Palestinian position is exactly what Obama has already said explicitly.
That, combined with Obama's pressure on Israel to accept the 1967 lines and the fact that AIPAC rarely issues press releases have led many to construe this as a message to Obama that AIPAC thinks he is going too far.

Jennifer Rubin writes that despite the Democatic spin in defense of Obama--or maybe because of it--Jewish leaders are only getting more nervous:

So the Obama defense squad first argued it was all “no big deal.” But it was. Then it argued “Bush did it too.” But Bush did the opposite, affording the Jewish state explicit recognition in Bush-Sharon letters on settlements (to be decided in final status talks, natural growth “up but not out” would be allowed in the interim) and on borders that would account for changes on the ground. Then the Obama-spun liberals insisted, well, even if was a change and disadvantaged Israel, the Jews would stick by Obama. (What a crass admission, that Obama should be able to savage the Jewish state so long as his poll numbers don’t suffer.) Then they argued over a conference call to Jewish leaders last Friday, ignoring the administration’s own admissions that : 1) “1967 lines with land swaps” meant stripping Israel of past bargaining gains and 2) the administration wouldn’t rule out cajoling Israel to sit down with a Hamas-Fatah government in which both sides that had not embraced the Quartet principles.

...Jewish leaders who were not under the spell of the Obama team following the Friday call were dismayed. As one participant in the call put it to me last night, it was a mystery what the administration was even trying to accomplish. Simply irritate already-nervous Jewish leaders? Word leaked out, as the administration knew it would, and the spin-offensive began all over again.

Pro-Israel Democrats privately are distressed. There are loyal Democrats who are pained to see “their side” behave in such a fashion, and frankly fatigued by perpetually smiling for the media while banging their heads on the desk behind closed doors.

Rubin concludes:

Rest assured, in public, Democrats will be in spin mode. But AIPAC’s memo is a rare peek behind the curtain at the discontent if not anger simmering in the pro-Israel community. That AIPAC’s membership is overwhelmingly Democratic only reinforces the veiled warning to the administration: Even for Democrats there is just so much they can take.

When she writes that even for Democrats there is just so much they can take, is she referring only to Jewish Democrats or Democrats in general?

It doesn't really matter though, does it?

If Jewish Democrats are on edge over Obama's speech and the way he is implementing it, the uneasiness of Jewish Democrats cannot but make Democrats as a whole uneasy as well. The next election may be a ways down the road, but the Democrats know they don't want to take any chances on upset the status quo and the edge they have in Jewish voters--and money.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Obama and Democrats.