Free Republic

Since the president’s Arab Spring speech, friends of Israel have been nervous about at least two issues: the promise Israel would not have to sit down with those who seek its destruction and the negotiations based on the “1967 borders with land swaps.” This weekend it became apparent that there is much to worry about and that the Obama administration has been playing a game usually practiced by the Palestinians, namely telling its domestic audience one thing and the negotiating parties something different.

Just as Israeli officials feared, US President Barack Obama's "vision" of pushing Israel back to it's 1967 borders has become the basis for international peace efforts in the Middle East. Last week, France offered to host renewed peace talks based on the "Obama vision." Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the weekend accepted the French proposal, even though it would likely end his campaign to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state at the UN in September. But it appears just the threat of taking such unilateral action has paid off. A former adviser to US presidents on Middle East issues said that...

A Muslim friend who I greatly respect wrote me that he doesn''t understand why I've been complaining about Obama's speeches. I suggested that the problem is he has been reading media coverage which tends to revolve around one sentence in the State Department speech. All I do is read the entire texts carefully and analyze them. People are saying that Obama's position is the same as Bush's or that he said nothing new. Honest, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is so upset that he would publicly disagree with the U.S. president he--and others in Israel--have a reason for doing...

Top Democrats have joined a number of Republicans in challenging President Obama’s policy toward Israel, further exposing rifts that the White House and its allies will seek to mend before next year’s election. The differences, on display as senior lawmakers addressed a pro-Israel group late Monday and Tuesday, stem from Obama’s calls in recent days for any peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians to be based on boundaries that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, combined with “mutually agreed swaps” of territory. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and other Democrats...

Pro-Israeli lobby urged 'not to boo Barack Obama after Middle East peace address President Barack Obama and Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are squaring up for another clash on Sunday as relations between the two countries plunge to their worst level since the founding of the Jewish state. By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent 7:45PM BST 21 May 2011 The two men will both address the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), two days after Mr Netanyahu publicly rebuked Mr Obama's peace plans for the Middle East from inside the Oval Office. Such is the controversy...

President Barack Obama is trying to assuage some of America's fiercest supporters of Israel after he endorsed the Jewish nation's 1967 boundaries as the basis for a Palestinian state and clashed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a speech Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama wasn't expected to outline another significant U.S. policy shift but probably would focus on the deep U.S.-Israeli alliance. But almost everyone in the room wanted to see how the president addresses his remarks from Thursday, when he said that a future Palestine should be shaped around the border lines that existed...

Aipac obama Aipac obama teleprompter Obama on the jumbotrons: you gotta love that the camerman at AIPAC included his teleprompters. Love that. First, allow me to thank President Obama. Who could have imagined that O would have been the one to bring me back to AIPAC? After the 2007 AIPAC, I never thought I would return. Obama was there, too. Having researched and documented Obama's background and history of Jew-hating friends and alliances, I was embarrassed by the panting and fawning over him, particularly after he had just said, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." Obama's longtime anti-Israel...

"As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself – by itself – against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism; to stop the infiltration of weapons; and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. The duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated," President Obama told American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)...

Obama: Controversy over border comments 'not based in substance' By: CNN Wire Staff (CNN) - President Barack Obama said Sunday that any controversy over his remarks last week that Israel-Palestinian negotiations should start from pre-1967 borders and include land swaps was "not based in substance." In his first speech as president to the main American-Israeli lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Obama said his reference to the border issue in a major policy speech on the Middle East "means that the parties themselves - Israelis and Palestinians - will negotiate a border that is different than the...

The president just finished speaking to a packed convention room at the AIPAC policy conference. He was not booed when he entered; most stood and offered brief applause. Still, the crowd during the speech had long periods of stony silence, and audible boos were heard when he brought up his plan to base an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the 1967 border lines. President Obama took nothing back from his foreign policy speech on Thursday and blamed the press for any controversy. He doubled down, making this upcoming presidential election a time for choosing for friends of Israel. Here is what...

With tension high between the Obama administration and the Israelis, many people were looking toward the president's American Israel Public Affairs Committee appearance to see if he would step back from an apparent stumble during a broad Middle East policy speech earlier in the week. In his AIPAC speech today, President Barack Obama redressed his remarks in an attempt at retaining American Jewish support levels for his 2012 campaign. In his 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama received 74 percent of the American Jewish vote. Obama's new version of his Thursday statements on Israel's pre-1967 borders was that he'd been misinterpreted...