Thanks! Have errand list tomorrow, so will have to catch up tomorrow night.
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May 23, 2011
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0511/Bibi_present_Jewish_groups_debate_partisanship.html
A bipartisan meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Blair House today included moments of sharply partisan tension, sources in the room said.
As Jewish Democrats stressed the need for a united, bi-partisan American conversation on Israel, the chief of a Jewish Republican group reserved the right to attack Democrats who stray from the pro-Israel line in an unusually frank exchange before a foreign leader.
“The [Republican Jewish Coalition] and [National Jewish Democratic Council] argued between them,” Israeli Embassy spokesman Jonathan Peled said. “The Prime Minister stressed bipartisanship ... and the importance of keeping Israel a bipartisan issue, as has always been the case.”
Each of the partisan Jewish groups invited about 10 people to the meeting, including DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and DCCC Chairman Steve Israel on the Democratic side and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson on the Republican. The meeting kicked off with Rep. Israel stressing, Rep. Israel told POLITICO, that bipartisan Israel backing is a “strategic asset” and with Wasserman Schultz proposing that the two Jewish groups, and the two national parties, hold a bi-partisan unity event.
But the meeting came at a moment of high tension between Netanyahu — and his American Republican alies — and President Barack Obama, with many Republicans in no mood to cede political ground on the charged question of Israel. Obama this week sought to lay out an American baseline for future negotiations.
And it comes amid a long-running debate between Jewish groups and leaders — led by the pro-Israel powerhouse AIPAC, at whose gathering Netanyahu speaks tonight — who believe that Israel draws strength from bipartisan support and worry that partisan politics could drive Democratic leaders away from Israel; and from those who see the use of Israel politics as a partisan wedge as a way of pushing policy in a hawkish direction.
Some in the room took the Democrats’ talk of bipartisanship as an effort to draw Netanyahu into shutting down Republican criticism of Democrats, and RJC executive director Matt Brooks spoke out to say he reserved the right to criticize Democrats who break ranks on Israel, as with the 54 signers of a 2010 letter criticizing Israel’s Gaza blockade.
His words produced a sharp response from the Democrats, and sources said Netanyahu sought to avoid being involved in the exchange.
Brooks didn’t respond to a request for comment, and an NJDC officials didn’t comment on the exchange. The Democrats stressed the harmony that characterized the bulk of the meeting.
“Several people in the room, on both sides of the aisle, discussed that Israel cannot become a partisan political issue, that if it becomes so then no one wins and Israel loses,” said Jonathan Beeton, Wasserman Schultz’s communications director
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We shall see the wheat and the chaff in the coming days.
He would not have said this unless he was sure it would negatively affect the Dems if the Repubs made an issue of Dem anti-Jewish sentiments.