No easy answers on Israel and the Iraq debate

This, I hope, will be the last AIPAC-conference-related blog for this week (and this year).

Olmert

My friend Bradley Burston, with the advantage of the time difference (I was too tired to write after coming back home around midnight yesterday), was quicker to write about Ehud Olmert and his comments on Iraq. Since I tended to agree with what he says (and ridiculed Olmert when he said similar things in his latest White House visit a while ago), I'm not going to elaborate too much about this issue, but wanted to add a couple of quick comments (you can watch Olmert's remarks here).

A. This is not a slip of the tongue but rather a planed-in-advance observation. Olmert knew what he was doing and decided that it is worth the possible price.

B. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wasn't as blunt and detailed as the prime minister, but basically said the same thing yesterday: "In a region where impressions are important, countries must be careful not to demonstrate weakness and surrender to extremists... it is true for Iraq..."

C. Apparently, this is what they believe (and maybe rightly so) - the question is whether they should say it in public or keep it to themselves. Trying to play the devil's advocate here, I concluded that the answer might not be as simple as to say "this is none of their business." If they really think that an American pullout from Iraq endangers Israel and destabilizes the region, don't they have the obligation to air these concerns? After all, the Saudis did the exact same thing when they informed the President that they don't want U.S. troops out of Iraq.

D. Right after Olmert's remarks yesterday night I asked two people to comment and was surprised by the contradictory reactions. An Israeli who's very familiar with the diplomacy of the Israel-U.S. relations said that Olmert was "a disaster." But a Jewish-American leader, one that's not very supportive of the war in Iraq, just shrugged. "We know that is Israel's position and Olmert will not be treated harshly for expressing it," he said.

Iran

What I have to say about divestment from Iran is in the news section today. The effort to apply economic pressure on the regime in Tehran through divestment has intensified in the United States. The pressure, which involves divestment on the part of international firms, is being carried out in parallel with continuous efforts at the United Nations Security Council to impose a second round of sanctions against Iran in response to its failure to abide by the world's call to end uranium enrichment.

Obama

He was great at the reception yesterday night and got a good crowd, although not nearly as good as Clinton's. If you stayed with Obama for too long, you couldn't even get into the Clinton reception, and had to find consolation in the one held by the less glitzy candidates Joseph Biden and Sam Brownback.

Obama met with Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday (as I said he would in my news piece), and from what I hear, he was very supportive of the divestment idea.

Rosner

If you want to watch me flesh and blood, stuttering in my broken English from the AIPAC conference, you can go to the Jerusalem Online site where they have a short interview with me. I basically repeat there what I already wrote in the blog, but not as eloquently. Not something I should be proud of, but a way to prove that I was really there.


More from the AIPAC conference on Rosner's Domain:

Cheney to AIPAC activists: If you're here and want out of Iraq you have no brains

Washington notes: AIPAC is all about sanctions