Hillary Clinton's "Disastrous" Pander on an Undivided Israel

It seems that Hillary Clinton has a position paper on Israel and Israel-related issues coming out that says she "believes that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned." This is, obviously, a disaster. No division of Jerusalem is fine as an Israeli negotiating posture, but it's absurd for the President of the United States to make this a baseline commitment. Simply put, it doesn't matter to Americans exactly how the Jerusalem issue is resolved, and our emphasis needs to be on supporting whatever kind of compromise the parties to the conflict can agree upon.

Now, needless to say, I don't think anyone thinks Clinton really believes this. As M.J. Rosenberg points out, her husband's parameters involved sharing Jerusalem as would any realistic plan. She's not a crazy person, and surely she realizes this. But, of course, the odds of actually achieving a settlement go down when leading American figures make these kind of statements that wreck their credibility as honest brokers. Similarly, Palestinian moderates are left hanging out to dry when American leaders give the impression that they have no intention of acting in a reasonable and impartial manner even if Palestinians change their behavior. And last, of course, the sort of addiction to the politics of pandering to You Know Who that this reflects doesn't bode well for Clinton's approach to this issue in practice no matter how sound her instincts may be in principle.

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/hrc_on_jerusalem.php

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/18/pandering_on_palestine_more_from_democratic_presidential_candidates

Until now Democratic candidates have been able to assume that only the right-wing of the pro-Israel community would ever hear about the hawkish nonsense they put out. Now, thanks to the netroots, everybody can learn that our supposed Iraq doves are uberhawks on Israel.

I wonder if Hillary is the hawk she is pretending to be. The ridiculous brouhaha over her Suha Arafat kiss (a brouhaha only among the Jewish right) has produced a hawkish course correction. I have to believe that if she is elected, she will push her husband's Clinton parameters (two states, settlements taken down, shared Jerusalem) and that the position paper is a campaign document that will be flushed if she is elected.

Still, these things are worth noting. Suppose she really believes this stuff! Nah. It's just not possible.

I don't mean to single out Hillary. Pandering is what our politics is all about. But exactly who are these Democrats pandering to? Not the Jewish community at large, which overwhelmingly supports the two-state solution and Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. Certainly not the Democratic base which strongly favors the US playing an honest broker role. So who is the pander to? I guess donors, a few donors in fact.

American democracy at work.

Sweet.