Obama's use of a single word in in his speech at the AIPAC policy forum on Wednesday may prove to be the demise of his campaign in the eyes of Arabs, Jewish people, or perhaps both.
In the lead-up to securing the nomination, Obama has slowly distanced himself from pro-Palestine positions he espoused during the primary ("no one is suffering more than the Palestinians"). His insistence that Jerusalem remain "undivided" was the out-of-left-field culmination of that retreat. No policy being pushed by the current administration or Israeli government calls for the complete removal of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.
I spoke with several friends in the region last week who said that Obama's appearance at AIPAC would be taken as a referendum on his stance toward the entire Arab world. Accordingly, when he leveled the claim that Jerusalem "will remain the capital of Israel" and "must remain undivided," much of the Arab world was shocked and appalled.
For all of Barack Obama's insistence on a new regime sprouting forth from the purported seeds of change his campaign has strewn, that one word made it feel as if he kicked off his stint as the presumptive nominee lock-stepped with the rest of the AIPAC-pandering herd in Washington.
But wait! A Friday article in The Jersualem Post contains a clarification from the Obama campaign:
But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama believes "Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties" as part of "an agreement that they both can live with."
"Two principles should apply to any outcome," which the adviser gave as: "Jerusalem remains Israel's capital and it's not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967."
He refused, however, to rule out other configurations, such as the city also serving as the capital of a Palestinian state or Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods.
"Beyond those principles, all other aspects are for the two parties to agree at final status negotiations," the Obama adviser said.
Sooooo, was that undivided, as in Israelis don't have to split it with anyone? or undivided as in we just don't want to see lines of masking tape running down the street?
If we're assuming he meant the second point, as his campaign clarified, was the use of "undivided" actually pro-Palestine then? No walls, no dividing lines, just everyone living in a John Lennonesque state of harmony?
The article in the Jerusalem Post describes how the remark felt like a cold shower, just as many right-wing Israelis were basking in the afterglow of the initial statement. Arab media is all asunder with cries of being hoodwinked. And these people can't even vote.
For a man that handled himself so well tip-toeing through several minefields created by his (or an associate's) choice of words, he really screwed the pooch here. Almost instantaneously, with one sentence, Obama obliterated credibility with an entire region in which we so desperately need an image boost. One further clarification left him in equally bad standing with the people he set out to mollify in the first place.
The Obama campaign is now being praised for strategic genius in securing him the Democratic nomination. There was undoubtedly a great deal of thought put into his speech to AIPAC as the statement that would celebrate his nomination by solidifying his presence as a foreign policy visionary.
His campaign obviously doesn't yet have a full grasp on the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, if they underestimated the wont of enormous swaths of a population to hang so desperately on the implication of one word. "Undivided." Those four syllables shouted louder about an Obama administrations' policy toward the most contentious aspect (Jerusalem) of a labyrinthine geopolitical conflict than any other word, sentence, passage, or paragraph he uttered that day.
Welcome to the general election, Sen. Obama. With the presidency at stake and the entire world watching, "bittergate" was just a stroll down Michigan Ave. in the springtime.