Any doubt why Obama chose Dennis Ross as a foreign policy adviser? He wants the lobby in his pocket. The Jerusalem Post interviewed Ross about the Middle East and he said Iraq was a great success story and that Jerusalem must not be divided. That's the way I read this answer below. Proving once again that Israelis and American Jews do not want to hear this idea. And that Obama's statement at AIPAC and flipflop the next day was merely the purposeful Obambiguity at which he excels. We don't know what he thinks.
Ross goes in for the usual dodge about subject to "final negotiations." Negotiations that have never taken place in 60 years. Will Obama end up pushing for an imposed solution, with the semi-enlightened Jewish community behind him? That's the hopeful read. And thus the purpose of this election: to rid the country of the neocons, making the new right the neolib hawks.
Here's Ross on Jerusalem:
Given how Obama said at the AIPAC conference
in June that Jerusalem shouldn't be divided and then said the next day
that he wasn't ruling out shared sovereignty with the Palestinians, how
can voters know that he'll really stand with Israel?
I am convinced that he will stand by Israel. I am. If I wasn't
convinced of that, I wouldn't be standing here. Do I think that at the
end of the day he will do whatever's necessary if Israel's threatened?
I do.
You raised the issue of Jerusalem. That was at the AIPAC
speech. And what he said, he said the following: "Jerusalem is Israel's
capital." He said the city should never be divided again. And it's true that in that speech he didn't make the third point, which is, the final status of the city
will be resolved by negotiations. Before the speech he said that, after
the speech he said that. The American position has been those three
points.
The fact of the matter is, Jerusalem is Israel's capital. That's a fact. It's also a fact that the city
should not be divided again. That's also a fact. The position of the
United States since Camp David, the position, by the way, adopted in
the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, signed by [prime minister] Menachem
Begin, was that the final status of Jerusalem would be resolved by
negotiations. Those are the three points. That's what his position is.
