Photoillo by Ed Johnson

“A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.”
—Rudyard Kipling

At last, Mitt Romney has told us one specific thing he intends to do as president: get weapons to al-Qaeda.

Trying to salvage a week of self-evisceration on foreign policy from the Republican presidential nominee, his leading foreign policy advisors, Eliot Cohen and Richard Williamson, told The New York Times last Friday just what a President Romney would do differently in the Middle East. Their critique included the insistence that President Obama “engage” the rebels in Syria. According to the Times, they did “[stop] short of saying that the United States should provide lethal arms” but favored “facilitating” the provision of lethal arms from other Arab states.”

Mr. Williamson is a former diplomat, Mr. Cohen a former State Department official who teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. It must be very advanced, because for the life of me I can’t understand how it is that a gun, or a grenade, or a rocket launcher changes in nature when it is shipped out by, say, a Saudi prince instead of the U.S military.

The primary reason the United States has not done more to help the rebels in Syria has been that Islamic extremists, including members of al-Qaeda, are widely reported to be in their ranks. Mr. Obama and his advisors are reluctant to risk arming these elements, or to help put into power a regime worse than the one it replaced. They are engaging a treacherous and complex region with the prudence it requires.

A more sensitive politician than Mr. Romney, meanwhile, might have picked up on how one speaker after another in Tampa lambasted the president for supposedly “leading from behind”—while cleverly refraining from suggesting an alternative. Condi Rice typically demanded to know, “Where does America stand?” on Syria, but conspicuously did not offer a word about where it should stand.

Well, now we know. Just as the right-wing response to gun violence here in America is more guns, the Romney answer to the Middle East is more weapons, dispensed to who-knows-who, so long as we’re not the (direct) suppliers. This isn’t “standing up for American values,” it’s “plausible deniability.” Of course, we can rest assured that there will be no blowback from this course—just as there was none from supporting the Taliban against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

“Leading from behind” is the description of our recent policy in Libya, as attributed to an anonymous Obama staffer, and it was such a disaster that it left one of the world’s major sponsors of terrorism bleeding out in the sand at a cost of zero American lives. But such limited victories are hardly the style of Mr. Cohen, a Paul Wolfowitz protege who has for years been advocating “World War IV” against radical Islamism from his battle post on The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page.

For Mr. Cohen, the next front in this war is regime change in Tehran, a goal that conflates nicely with the right-wing trope that President Obama is a Neville Chamberlain-style appeaser at a moment of “existential” world crisis. Hence Dinesh D’Souza’s claims that the president has inherited an “anti-colonialist” mindset from his Kenyan father, the accusation by Charles Krauthammer that he pointedly returned a bust of Winston Churchill to the British Embassy, Rudy Giuliani’s belief that Mr. Obama has an “almost irrational desire to negotiate” with Iran, and the charge by numerous leading Republicans that the president, in Mr. Romney’s words, intends to “hollow out our military through devastating defense budget cuts.”

Lending his support to such indictments was Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who asserted on 9/11 that the U.S. had lost the “moral right” to keep his country from launching a preventive attack on Iran. This was at best a thoughtless remark, coming as it did on the anniversary of the U.S. taking a pretty big bullet for our opposition to radical Islamism. It was also disingenuous. Mr. Netanyahu is not worried that we will prevent Israel from attacking Iran; he is worried that without our assistance such an attack will be ineffectual.

As Mr. Netanyahu knows, even a combined U.S.-Israeli air attack is unlikely to guarantee an end to Iran’s nuclear program. Confirmation will require yet another American invasion of a massive Central Asian country half the world away, this one with a population more than twice that of Iraq and Afghanistan combined, infinitely more cohesive than those states and better equipped to defend itself.

Nothing would be more likely to unite the entire Islamic world against us—and to alienate our other allies. Nothing would be more likely to spark endless rounds of deadly terrorist attacks—especially here in this city.

Mr. Netanyahu has inserted himself directly into our electoral politics as no foreign leader ever has before. Throughout Mr. Obama’s time in office, he and his government have treated this American president with contempt and impatience, seeking every opportunity to publicly humiliate him and bring him to heel. Last March, he went so far as to equate the Obama administration’s refusal to move more swiftly against Iran with the War Department’s refusal to bomb Auschwitz as a way of saving European Jews from the Holocaust.

It’s an odious comparison—but one that upends his own argument. Bombing Auschwitz would have meant killing many of its prisoners outright. Those who survived and managed to escape would have had to make their way, starving and barely clothed, through the pitiless German and Polish populations surrounding them. Even bombing the rail lines to the camps would have been of dubious value; Allied fliers bombed rail networks relentlessly throughout World War II only to see the Germans assiduously rebuild them. To the very end of the war, the Nazi regime insisted on devoting significant resources to the slaughter of the Jewish people, and it’s hard to believe they would have stopped even if their death camps were destroyed.

The War Department made the strategic decision that the fastest way to end the Holocaust was to devote all of its resources to crushing the Nazis. In retrospect, it’s hard to argue with that. Meeting the terrible challenges that the world presents requires a steady nerve and real judgment. Making believe that the situation in Syria can be resolved with a few arms shipments (under the right label) is no more helpful—or realistic—than fantasizing that a wave of American bombers could have curtailed the Holocaust, or that another such wave can end Iran’s nuclear threat.

That’s all good. But at this critical juncture in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, words are less important than actions. The president needs to show his support for Israel in tangible ways, both in public and behind the scenes. There can be no equivocation, no cool detachment, no mixed signals. Israel’s enemies and, indeed, the rest of the world need to understand that the United States and Israel stand together in the battle against global terrorism.

Nothing would please the world’s terrorists and terrorist sponsors more than the prospect of a bitter split between the U.S. and Israel. Since 2009, many have observed, the Obama White House has been tougher on Jerusalem than it has been on Teheran. That perception, whether justified or not, has to stop, now. Nobody should have any reason to doubt America’s support for Israel, and for the decisions that Israel will have to make about its own national security.

Washington must remind the world that Iran’s religious and secular leaders, including its grand ayatollah, have pledged themselves—in public—to Israel’s destruction. This sort of rhetoric would be condemned and sanctioned if it emanated from a European or Asian capital. But Iran’s leaders regularly and consistently make it clear that if they had the means, they would wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

Nobody can doubt that Iran’s leaders are intent on building a nuclear weapon, and if they succeed, who can doubt that the ayatollahs will use the weapon to target Israel? That’s why the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is, as Mr. Obama stated, intolerable.

So the questions become: What to do, and when to do it?

Like any other nation, Israel will act as it sees fit to defend its national security and its civilian population. Mr. Obama, with some justification, told the AIPAC gathering that loose talk about an attack on Iran could be counterproductive. He might be right: Over the weekend, followers of Iran’s grand ayatollah—a man who makes the country’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seem reasonable—scored a big victory in the nation’s parliamentary elections. Tensions with the Israel, the U.S. and the West certainly played into the ayatollah’s hands.

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is not, in fact, inevitable, although Mr. Netanyahu rightly noted in his own speech to AIPAC that Israel will not stand idly by if Teheran persists in building a weapon of mass destruction. Israel remains skeptical about the power of diplomatic and economic sanctions, with good reasons—sanctions are a rational response to a crisis, but Iran’s leaders clearly are not rational. Nevertheless, time has not yet run out on diplomacy. But the diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran must be effective, indeed, it must be crushing, and it is up to the Obama White House to take the lead.

That course of action will require more than platitudes from Washington. It will require determination and passionate belief. It remains to be seen if Mr. Obama can summon those qualities on behalf of Israel—and, by extension, on behalf of American security as well.

The Swedish always bring the best delegates to the party

You can thank all that traffic in Midtown this week to the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which brought in not only the world's most important leaders, but all their bodyguards and beefed up security as well. Don't even try going east of 3rd Ave today, is all we're saying.

But as President Barack Obama hangs out with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iran's ultimate bad boy, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we know the real question on your mind: "Where are all the hotties?"

These are indisputable facts, but they bear repeating from time to time. Mr. Netanyahu reminded Americans that as they look out on an unstable and uncertain Middle East, there is, in fact, an "anchor of stability" in the region--Israel, America's friend and ally. It's hardly a secret that many in the region have nothing good to say about the United States, and some--a small but potentially deadly minority--wish to bring harm to America's borders. The same people wish to wipe Israel off the face of the map. America's enemies, the prime minister noted, are Israel's enemies as well.

Mr. Netanyahu drove home the point by referring to the sudden death of a man responsible for the loss of innocent lives throughout the region and, indeed, the world. "Congratulations, America. Congratulations, Mr. President. You got bin Laden. Good riddance," the prime minister said.

Mr. Netanyahu's congratulatory remarks should have reaffirmed another simple truth. Osama bin Laden and his ilk are just as eager to bring death and destruction to Israel as they are to the United States. But there is one difference: Israel lives in a far more dangerous neighborhood.

The prime minister's speech was a welcome reminder of all that Israel and the United States have in common. With any luck, the White House was paying attention.

No friend, no true ally, would ask another state to put its very existence in jeopardy. But that is precisely what the president has asked of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly said that the pre-1967 borders are "indefensible." So, too, is the president's proposal.

It's important to bear in mind that Mr. Obama's remarks were carefully thought out and discussed internally before they were issued on the eve of Mr. Netanyahu's visit to Washington. All the more reason to conclude that this administration simply does not appreciate the gravity of the security issues facing Israel. If Mr. Obama's remarks had been made in haste, if he had uttered them in an unscripted moment, they might be explained away as a mere gaffe. But this was no gaffe. This was an expression of the president's genuine convictions.

That's the troubling part.

Israel is surrounded by hostile, undemocratic states and an array of terrorist organizations that are nothing if not brutally candid about their objectives: they wish to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. They would do it, if they had the means and the weaponry. No other country on earth is so embattled. No other country's sovereign territory is so vulnerable to so many threats. Successive administrations in Washington have appreciated Israel's predicament, even if they occasionally disagreed with specific policies and tactics.

The Obama White House, however, has been an exception. Not long after Mr. Obama took office, Washington called on Israel to suspend new settlement construction in the West Bank, a pronouncement that did nothing to win Mr. Netanyahu's confidence in the new president's policies and attitude. The relationship between Washington and Jerusalem has been tense ever since, and, from Israel's perspective, rightly so.

Mr. Netanyahu apparently was caught off-guard by the president's proposal. Published reports said that he desperately sought changes in the president's remarks, but he was rebuffed and humiliated. These are not the actions of a true friend.

Mr. Obama's subsequent speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been interpreted as an attempt to soothe wounded feelings, even a slight pull-back from his original remarks. The president insisted that the U.S. and Israel continue to share the same basic values and reaffirmed Washington's commitment to keeping the crazed rulers of Iran from getting their hands on nuclear weapons. He insisted that Israel could not be expected to negotiate with Hamas, or with a government that includes Hamas, as long as the terrorist group refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

While these sentiments are welcome, they are simply statements of the obvious. The U.S., threatened as it is by Islamic extremists who already have killed thousands of Americans, could hardly insist that Mr. Netanyahu's government engage with the would-be mass murderers in Gaza.

The AIPAC speech, then, changed nothing. It asserted obvious truths. It did not take the sting out of the president's earlier remarks. Former mayor Ed Koch, a lifelong Democrat, realized the enormity of the president's dangerous and incomprehensible new course. "If President Obama does not change his position, I cannot vote for his re-election," Mr. Koch wrote. The former Mayor spoke for many when he added that the president's AIPAC speech "did not reassure me."

Nor should it have. The pattern is clear. Mr. Obama has been shifting Washington's policy of unwavering support for Israel to a more confrontational posture. His position on borders and his formula for land swaps is more in line with the Palestinian position, not with Israel's. That is a significant and highly unfortunate change in U.S. policy.

Next on the Palestinian agenda is a United Nations resolution recognizing a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The move is expected in September, when the General Assembly meets in New York. The Obama administration must do everything in its power to make sure the resolution dies from lack of support. Opposition from Washington isn't enough. The U.S. must work behind the scenes with allies in Europe and elsewhere to make sure that this effort to isolate Israel fails.

At this point, it is probably too late to think that the Obama administration will have a change of heart about Israel. The president clearly regards Mr. Netanyahu and his government as an obstacle to U.S. strategic interests.

Israel's friends in the United States have every right to be angry and sad. Like Mr. Koch, they may be inclined to look elsewhere next year, when the president will be up for re-election. Republican strategists already are trying to drive a wedge between Democrats and Jewish voters, but they won't have to work very hard to achieve their goals. Mr. Obama, in rejecting friendship with Israel, has done the work for his prospective opponents.

He does not deserve the support of those who continue to embrace Israel as a friend, partner and ally.

"We have a new president and a new administration and we have to give them leeway to do the things that they think they need to do," said Engel, reaffirming a position that marked something of a sea change in the way Jewish Democratic politicians approached criticism of Israeli policy. But when asked when that leeway would expire, he said, "Frankly, I think we are rapidly approaching that point."

The concern of Engel and other Democratic Israel hawks has always been that demands not be made on Israel alone, but that renewed American pressure on the freezing of settlement growth be matched with significant demands on Israel's Arab neighbors.

Engel, and other Democratic leaders, heard that balance in Obama's Cairo speech, and as a result, mitigated their usually staunch, blanket support of Israel—which Benjamin Netanyahu has counted on in Washington to apply pressure on the White House—to allow for a harder U.S. line against settlement growth. Influential columnists like Tom Friedman have reinforced Obama's argument.  

But in recent weeks, the complaints from within Israel for Obama to offer direct reassurance to the Israeli people about American support have intensified, applying more pressure on the Democratic supporters of Israel who have provided cover to Obama's new policy.

Engel, for one, wants a pressure-relieving meeting to happen.

"I'm hoping that the two of them will be able to sit down and talk," said Engel, referring to Obama and Netanyahu. "Netanyahu can only move if public opinion in Israel allows him to move. Right now, public opinion is very unhappy with the things the administration is saying to them on settlements and natural growth. The image of the United States is getting worse in Israel."

The Obama administration may be willing to endure an erosion of popularity in Israel, where the president has been less exuberantly received than in most other places, if it wins him a perception across the region that the U.S. is an honest broker. Israel supporters like Engel understand that calibration, and the fact that they have been willing to go along with it until now is testament to Obama's changing the terms of the Israel debate here.

But there is also consternation among some Israel supporters, including Engel, that if Obama is criticizing that bad Israel policy because he believes it will win him reciprocal concessions from Arab states, he is being, to borrow the term Hillary Clinton once used, naïve.

"I think there has been intransigence among the Arabs," he said, adding, "The Arabs need to be pushed more and if they were pushed more, then Israel wouldn't feel like it was being singled out. If the U.S. and Israel are arguing, the Arabs are just going to sit back and enjoy the show. When the Israel and the U.S. are working in tandem, that's when the Arab countries make concessions."

Engel added that he thought "Obama is a very, very smart guy and he thinks he can achieve his goals," but he reiterated his caution that his breaking point was "rapidly approaching."

In an editorial last week, even The Times, which has largely supported the new Obama policy, argued, "Now he needs to explain to Israelis why freezing settlements and reviving peace talks is clearly in their interest."

"He says something in the [Cairo] speech about the United States has to respect elections. Now that's either Hamas or Lebanon," said Weiner. "If that was a hat-tip to the notion that we have to negotiate with Hamas or provide aid to the territories, which he is going to try to do—these are now substantive things that there is disagreement on in the pro-Israel Jewish community. Then he'd be going against 75 percent of where people are."

In the Op-Ed page of last week's Times, Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister and Kadima Party leader, argued against allowing groups like Hamas into open elections.

"Say he wants to send aid to Gaza, which he does, well that's hard to do," added Weiner. "That's the equivalent of sending aid to Iran. I don't care what kind of N.G.O. you go through, you are still sending aid to a government that is pretty hostile."

"I do think that if you have a plan to provide aid to the people of Gaza or you start to negotiate with Hamas, then you are into a place where you might get some liberals saying, ‘Yeah, well why not,'" said Weiner. "But then you are in a different place because you are pushing the envelope some."

That much is obvious from the unusually thoughtful, nuanced and varied reactions by officials in New York—the world capital of Israel-boosterism—to his criticisms of the Netanyahu government’s settlement policies.

“I think Obama feels that this type of shock therapy will have an effect on Netanyahu and also cause some American Jews to rally to his side,” said Representative Pete King, a staunchly pro-Israel Republican who said he is willing, for now, to go along with the president on the settlement issue. “If he continues to take this hard a line, I think you will see a split.”

A more vigorous debate among American friends of Israel is precisely what Mr. Obama had in mind at least as far back as February 2008, when he told Jewish voters in Cleveland, “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

He added, “One of the things that struck me when I went to Israel was how much more open the debate was around these issues in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States.”

Since becoming president, he has resolutely set about making here more like there.

Last month, he and Secretary of State Clinton, who was unwavering in her support of Israeli government policy as a senator from New York, caused Israeli officials and supporters to shudder when she said Mr. Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions.”

In his historic address to the Muslim world on June 4 in Cairo, Mr. Obama made the position official.

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” he said. “This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

As the ground moves beneath them, some of the standard-bearers of pro-Israel politics in America, most notably Senator Chuck Schumer, are proceeding with caution.

In a statement to The Observer, Mr. Schumer--who once assured an audience of Jewish donors that then-Senator Clinton “will just look to me” on “Jewish issues”--emphasized Mr. Obama’s overall commitment to protecting Israel from terrorism—a word the president himself avoided in his Cairo speech.

Mr. Schumer steered clear of Mr. Obama’s demands on Israel.

“President Obama is determined to eliminate the terrorists who attacked our country and the hateful extremist groups determined to destroy Israel,” said Mr. Schumer in the statement. “He has initiated a strong plan to reach out to the Muslim community across the globe in an effort to get them to support pragmatic peace efforts in the Middle East. I believe the President understands Israel’s security needs and I look forward to sitting with Secretary Clinton and the members of the Administration to discuss the path ahead.”

BUT SOME MEMBERS of the New York delegation in Washington are willing to go further, providing evidence of a pro-Israel contingent that will allow for more criticism of the sitting Israeli government in pursuit of what they believe to be Israel’s longer-term interests. 

“A large part of the pro-Israel community does call for a freeze on settlements, as does a large part of the political spectrum in Israel,” said Representative Jerry Nadler, an immaculately credentialed Zionist who was an early supporter in Washington of the two-state solution. “I think the general direction the president is going in is good.”

Mr. Nadler said that he was “somewhat uneasy” with Mr. Obama calling the settlements illegal, but that he thought Democrats would follow Mr. Obama for now.

“You’ve got Rahm Emanuel in there, and he’s got [Iran envoy] Dennis Ross, who I regard as a friend, and you got Hillary in there. I very much think he is not going to go farther than he really should,” said Mr. Nadler. “Right now, it’s within the bounds.”

Representative Steve Israel, another influential voice in the delegation, said that the tough talk didn’t make Mrs. Clinton or the administration any less pro-Israel.

“There may be a change in nuance and tone, but there is no fundamental change in policy,” he said.

He was inclined to follow the administration’s new approach as long as they did not question Israel’s existential validity or shirk from ensuring its security. “So if the administration wants to talk about settlements and issues like natural expansion, I’m not uncomfortable with that,” Mr. Israel said.

Representative Nita Lowey, who chairs the powerful foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, also said she considered Mrs. Clinton as pro-Israel as ever. Although she said she didn’t know whether it would become more acceptable in the pro-Israel community to criticize the Israeli government, she added, “To have a president who will aggressively work towards peace is in the interest of, I would say, most members of the Jewish community that I know.”

Other members of the delegation seemed slightly more uneasy about the administration’s demands on Israel.

In some recent statements, Representative Gary Ackerman has expressed support for the Obama administration, but he has also called for the administration to more clearly define what it means by a settlement freeze and has called for “compromise” that would seem to benefit Mr. Netanyahu.

Representative Anthony Weiner said he applauded Mr. Obama’s speech in Cairo, but said that he thought the president went “too far” in condemning the settlements. He suggested that might have been designed to cause conflict with the pro-Israel community to gain the credibility to attain Arab concessions. 

“More than likely it’s, some people stop marching up the hill with him in the pro-Israel community and he makes the calculation, ‘Well, I still have plenty to go, and it’s more important that I show people that I’m different,’” said Mr. Weiner.

Eliot Engel, who has said that the singling out of the settlement issue caused him grave concern that the administration was abusing an ally in Israel, said after the speech that the conditions put on the Arabs made him more likely to “cut the president slack.”

“When he makes a statement to which I disagree, rather than jumping up and attacking him for it, I am going to say maybe he is making that statement because he has other things on his mind,” said Mr. Engel. “Maybe he’s able to get something else in return that the pro-Israel side wants to see. And as long as I’m convinced that he is moving along those lines, then I’m willing to trust him.”

Asked if his colleagues in the delegation felt similarly, Mr. Engel said, “Yes.”

MR SCHUMER’S.colleague in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand, once expressed a view much closer to the one currently held by the Obama administration, telling The Observer in February that if Mr. Obama “offers positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement, that will be a strategic decision for the administration and our secretary of state.”

Now, though, she is clearly following Mr. Schumer’s cautious lead.

On June 8, Ms. Gillibrand spoke in front of American and Israeli flags at a women’s event sponsored by the UJA-Federation at the Grand Hyatt in midtown, where she repeated her new go-to line, which is that her focus is Israel’s security. In an interview outside the ballroom, Ms. Gillibrand told The Observer that she thought the Cairo speech was “a call to action for everyone to focus on the peace process, particularly the Arab world. I think that was something new.”

As for the administration’s specific call on Israel to freeze settlement activities, she repeated several more times that “my primary focus is on Israeli security” and suggested she saw it more as a bargaining chip, saying that she thought the president was trying “to make sure that if we are going to ask for sacrifices from Israel, we are going to ask for sacrifices from the Palestinian people as well. I think what he is trying to do is bring everyone to the table and put all those issues on the table.”

ON THE MORNIN of June 7, New York Jewish leaders met at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown for a charity breakfast of bagels and lox, white fish and rugelach. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that as long as the president called for preconditions to a deal on all sides, he was fine with the president “trying to portray an evenhanded approach.”

He said that the Cairo speech had given the president greater leeway, but said that people like “Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel are probably going to stay with their positions. But hopefully the end result can be judged in the next three years.”

Outside the hall, State Senator Eric Schneiderman of the Upper West Side paused from shaking hands with rabbis to address the settlements issue, which he said the Obama administration was making more acceptable for Israel supporters to debate publicly.

“There will continue to be a lot of debate about what you say publicly,” said Mr. Schneiderman. “No one wants to be perceived as undercutting Israel. but that doesn’t mean you don’t talk about what you think Israel should do.”

While some veteran Middle East analysts have suggested Obama did not go far enough in his criticism of Israeli policy, Representative Anthony Weiner of New York said that he went "too far."

Weiner called the speech "big and momentous" and an example of "Obama at his best," but made clear that he disagreed with the administration's new hard line against natural-growth expansion of settlements.

"President Obama said that part of his mission was to speak the truth to friends," said Weiner. "Well I think that I'm doing that with President Obama. Being truthful in saying that he got it wrong when he went as far as he did on settlements. That doesn't mean that I don't support him and that he's not a friend to Israel. I just mean he went a little far out there."

Weiner said he viewed Obama's tough talk as a tactic to bolster the standing of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

"It's my view they are doing this to prop up Abbas, to give him a victory, to give him the opportunity to say, 'I got more out of Americans than any leader of the Palestinians has ever gotten,'" said Weiner. "I think it's a hollow effort because I don't think that Mahmoud Abbas can win an election, but I think that's what it was about."

Weiner said that Obama's remarks on settlements in Cairo were "not newsworthy" because they broke no new ground on policy, and said that he thought they were meant once again to demonstrate Obama's effort to distance himself from George Bush.

"If you proceed that they want to show there is a new sheriff in town and they are not like the Bush administration, there are only so many things that they can say," said Weiner. "Are they going to say, 'Tear down your security fence?' Are they going to say, 'Stop the checkpoints going into Gaza?' What are they going to say? And the settlements also have the benefit of already being something the Israelis have decided is a problem."

When asked if some Jewish members in the delegation will follow Obama's lead, Weiner said, "I don't know. I get the sense just hearing the buzz that he went too far. But it's a relatively small thing and it's a nuanced thing and who knows what was said behind closed doors, what kind of assurances Bibi got from the president on the much bigger issue of Iran."

When asked if it was possible that some Jewish members of the New York delegation would peel off and support Obama, Weiner said, "Give me a name. Would Gary Ackerman, because he's the chair on the subcommittee? He's a powerful guy now. I bet he'd say, ‘Yeah I thought that was wrong.'"

On Monday, Ackerman also distanced himself from the Obama administration's comprehensive opposition to settlements, expressing confidence that a "compromise" would be reached to allow for natural-growth expansion, as long as it proved not to be "ruse" for a land grab.

(A story in yesterday's Times showed that the population growth in settlements outpaced rates throughout Israel, suggesting that the official Israeli explanations of "natural growth" to accomodate growing families don't tell the whole story.) 

I asked Weiner if Obama's increasingly assertive rhetoric about the Israeli settlements might lead to split among pro-Israel, pro-Obama Democrats in Congress.

He said that the fight over settlements would serve more to bolster Obama's credibility with Arab interlocutors than cause any "peeling away" or political movement in the pro-Israel community.

"Even the hawks believe you have to do something on settlements," he said. "I believe even the doves believe you have to allow for natural growth. But if he pushes in this direction more, I just don't think you're going to see large numbers of people peeling away and saying, 'Yeah, you have got to stop natural growth.'

"More than likely it's, some people stop marching up the hill with him in the pro-Israel community and he makes the calculation, 'Well, I still have plenty to go and it's more important that I show people that I'm different. '"

Weiner also suggested that Obama had calculated that if he did clash with some of the most uncompromisingly pro-Israel officials in America--like, say,Anthony Weiner--it would only serve to boost his credibility in the Arab world as an honest broker.

"I think with settlements," Weiner said, "he wanted a fight with me."   

Speaking on a conference call with New York Jewish leaders organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council, Makovsky revealed what he called the “scoop” that “the trip to Saudi Arabia by the president was actually done, it seems, at Israel’s request. At the dinner of Hillary Clinton and Netanyahu, when they were talking about what could the Arabs put on the table, without just Israel doing the giving, Netanyahu raised certain ideas. One of them was a trade-off and other things that the Saudis should be able to do, and I think Hillary’s response was, 'Only the president can do this.'”

Makovsky, who has written a new book with ambassador Dennis Ross (the Obama administration’s envoy to Iran), also said that during Obama’s unexpected drop-by during Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s meeting with national security adviser Jim Jones in Washington, “both signaled a willingness to de-escalate and not get into a fixed collision.”

Barak had come to press the Israeli case for natural growth expansion in settlements. But Obama’s clear opposition to settlements in the Cairo speech made it clear that his administration considers the freezing of all settlements to be essential to the restarting of a peace process and a shifting of the terms of debate about Israel in the United States.