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Did Obama backtrack on Jerusalem?

Fri, 06/06/2008 - 12:47pm

Alex Wong/Getty Images

His campaign says no:

Asked for comment, the Obama campaign put a reporter in immediate contact with Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla. -- an Orthodox Jew, a strong supporter of Israel and Obama's point man on many of these issues -- who told ABC News, "that is not backtracking."

"His position has been the same for the past 16 months," Wexler said. "He believes Jerusalem should be an undivided city and must be the capital of a Jewish state of Israel. He has also said -- and it's the same position as President Bush, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert -- that Jerusalem is of course a 'final status' issue," meaning it would be one of the key and final points of negotiation for a Palestinian state. "And Sen. Obama as president would not dictate final status issues. He will permit the Palestinians and Israel to negotiate, and he would respect any conclusion they reach."

ABC's Jake Tapper concludes, "The record seems to back Wexler's argument that Obama has said both that Jerusalem should be Israel's undivided capital, and that its status is ultimately up to Israel." (Which is different, I would note, than saying its status should be up to both parties.)

Still, it seems like this is an awfully fine needle to thread. It's like saying to your daughter, "You shouldn't marry that jerk, but it's up to you" -- the kind of thing that creates some real problems in the family down the road.

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No, he did not

by Cindy on Fri, 06/06/2008 - 1:03pm

I have no connection with the Obama campaign, never met the guy, but I have read his writings and listened to his words, from which I conclude he is a knowledgeable guy on foreign affairs, it's actually one of his strengths, contrary to popular perception, so for this reason I dismiss both (1) the suggestion that he held to a naive or uninformed view and then changed it, and (2) the paternal analogy in the above FP post suggesting Obama personally holds to an exclusionist extreme pro-Israel view while respecting sovereign rights of parties to decide.

Rather, my guess is that Obama's error was in using language that has one meaning (an exclusionist meaning) to the ordinary person unfamiliar with the efforts and discussions of the past regarding Jerusalem, but another (more ambiguous, room-for-negotiating meaning) to those familiar with the history of discussion regarding Jerusalem. Many ordinary people heard the undivided Jerusalem capital of Israel statement and understood this in the way the reasonable ordinary person would understand it. This is a case where Obama (and any advisers if they were in on this) should have better considered the knowledge level of the audience--not just certain leaaders and policy-makers in the know, nor just AIPAC in general, but the broader audience, indeed the entire world when it comes to a topic of such potentially incendiary significance as this.

For decades now all sorts of plans to have a united Jerusalem have been batted about, this is no secret, but because of the uniqueness of Jerusalem they do not neatly fit into our conceptions of what a united city specifically means, how a city can be united and yet shared. Is Obama then advocating sharing Jerusalem? I don't think that either. Rather he was using language that allowed for sharing, for not sharing, for internationalizing, for all sorts of options, all subject to negotiation. Finally, I have no reason to question his sincerity about him being a neutral broker; both his statement and the clarification are entirely consistent with everything I've observed and learned about Obama, with his empathy for all peoples and expressed desire to together forge solutions that aren't anti-this or anti-that, but that are acceptable for all.