Times Reports Shift in US Mideast Policy ( MJ Rosenberg)

[Jefferson23]

Posted: April 15, 2010 05:02 PM

snip* The Times writes that General James Jones, the White House national security adviser, agrees with the President while his assistant, Dennis Ross, favors an "incremental approach." According to other sources, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joseph Biden are on board with Obama and Jones.

The administration "insists that support for Israel is unwavering" and points out that strategic military cooperation with Israel is continuing at the same levels as previously. Also, according to polls, a clear majority of the American Jewish community supports the Obama approach to U.S.-Israel relations, with only 37% disapproving. Meanwhile, Israeli "support for dismantling most settlements" is at a "five-year high."

But the major "pro-Israel" lobbying organizations are not happy. On Tuesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) announced that it had 333 House members and 76 Senators backing Congressional letters telling Obama to ease up on Prime Minister Netanyahu. (Here is the Senate text; here is the House's).

snip* In an unusual statement by a senior AIPAC official, Jonathan Kessler said at last month's AIPAC conference that the lobbying organization does not hesitate before attempting to ensure the defeat members of Congress it opposes. Kessler was speaking about the student senate at the University of California, Berkeley, and its effort to pass a resolution calling on the university to divest from two companies that purportedly supply the Israeli military. He then says that AIPAC will act on the university campuses as it does "in our nation's capital."

This is from the UC Berkeley newspaper, the Daily Californian, and can be seen on video here.

"How are we going to beat back the anti-Israel divestment resolution at Berkeley?" said Jonathan Kessler, leadership development director for AIPAC, at a recent conference of the lobbying group. "We're going to make sure that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote. This is how AIPAC operates in our nation's capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation's campuses."
Also, the World Jewish Congress has taken out full page ads in today's Washington Post and Wall Street Journal criticizing the President. Ronald Lauder, who serves as president of the organization, is an ultra-conservative Republican who ran for mayor of New York in 1989 as a right-wing alternative to Rudolph Giuliani. (He lost.)

in full: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/times-reports-shift-in-us_b_539598.html