Soccer Dad

Kurtzer: Obama Didn't Understand The 'Code Word' When He Spoke To AIPAC

Any excuse to deny the obvious:

Adviser denies Obama showed naivete on Jerusalem

Democrat Barack Obama misused a "code word" in Middle East politics when he said Jerusalem should be Israel's "undivided" capital but that does not mean he is naive on foreign policy, a top adviser said on Tuesday.

Addressing a pro-Israel lobby group this month, the Democratic White House hopeful said: "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

The comment angered Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, as the capital of a future state. "He has closed all doors to peace," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said after the June 4 speech.

Obama later said Palestinians and Israelis had to negotiate the status of the city, in line with long-held U.S. presidential policy.

Daniel Kurtzer, who advises Obama on the Middle East, said Tuesday at the Israel Policy Forum that Obama's comment stemmed from "a picture in his mind of Jerusalem before 1967 with barbed wires and minefields and demilitarized zones."

"So he used a word to represent what he did not want to see again, and then realized afterwards that that word is a code word in the Middle East," Kurtzer said.

If at this late date Kurtzer has to add his 2 cents to clarify, then it is evident that Obama did indeed 'misspeak' and in fact did indeed backtrack.

Jennifer Rubin writes about the implications of Obamas mistake:

Not understanding that a key term is a code word, not having a current picture of Jerusalem, and not anticipating the implications of having to reverse field within 24 hours sure sounds naive. Even more so, if the advisor says Obama didn't understand what he was saying. But wait a minute. Didn't Obama have advisors on Israel assisting him with the speech? Where were they? Once again, this suggests that there is too little adult supervision of a candidate unaccustomed to speaking on the world stage about issues in which there are lots of code words, indeed in which every word (e.g. "preconditons," "immediate withdrawal") has meaning to Americans' foes and friends.

Personally, instead of adult supervision, I have another suggestion to help Obama out:

That invisible ink will come in handy too.

By Daled Amos

Posted by daledamos at June 18, 2008 11:51 AM