Obama shift to Israel’s corner evident at federations’ GA

Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey delegates to the GA were (front, from left), Hope Morgan, Jewish Family and Children’s Service (JFCS) vice president; Andi Levin, JFCS vice president; Janine Sobel, Federation past president; Betty Adler, Federation vice president; and Janet Smith, Federation CFO; with (rear, from left), Sivia Braunstein, Federation board member and Partnership 2000 representative; Bob Schwartz, Federation vice president; Lynny Ravitz, Federation vice president; Huldah Robertson, Glenmede Trust; Josh Reisman, Federation board member; Jennifer Weiss, JFCS executive director; Carol Lupo, Federation Annual Campaign chair; David Ross, Jewish Senior Housing and Healthcare Service CEO; Joel Kaber, Federation CEO; Nina Cohen, Jewish Community Foundation, Inc. past president and Glenmede Trust; Karen Locke, Glenmede Trust; and David Farber, Federation president. Glenmede conducted a GA session on trusts. LOCAL REACTION TO THE GA WILL APPEAR IN THE NEXT VOICE. WASHINGTON— When the White House chief of staff took to the podium at the federations’ General Assembly to call for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without preconditions, he sounded almost exactly like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. JTA photo by Robert Cumins/Jewish Federations of North America. “All issues should be resolved through negotiations,” Rahm Emanuel said to delegates at the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual meeting. “No one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the overarching goal of lasting peace.”

One day earlier, Netanyahu used the GA podium to appeal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table.

“Let us seize the moment to reach an historic agreement; let us begin talks immediately,” Netanyahu said.

Palestinian Authority leaders say they will not negotiate unless Israel commits to a full settlement freeze. To some extent, the Obama administration is to blame for the intransigence; the Palestinians adopted that position only once the Obama administration insisted earlier this year that Israel commit to a full freeze.

U.S. administration officials have since tempered their position, praising the concessions Netanyahu is willing to make on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank.

During a recent visit to Jerusalem, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Israel’s concessions “unprecedented.”

Speaking at a joint news conference with Netanyahu, Clinton said, “What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements which he has just described—no new starts for example—is unprecedented in the context of prior negotiations.”

The U.S. position shift, while pleasing Israel, has angered many in the Arab world and left the Palestinian leadership in a difficult spot. If Palestinian leaders give up their insistence for a full settlement freeze before returning to negotiations, they will be seen as betraying the cause. If they hold firm, peace talks will remain stalled.

The convergence of the Israeli and U.S. positions on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations comes amid some concern about the Obama-Netanyahu relationship.

Their meeting was under unusual circumstances, taking place well past the time Netanyahu could exploit a handshake with Obama for Israel’s evening news back home—and there wasn’t even a public handshake. In a rare move, the White House skipped both the standard quick photo op before the meeting and the postmeeting Q & A session with reporters.

Few specifics emerged from the meeting. Obama and Netanyahu spoke alone for an hour of the 100-minute meeting, and afterward Netanyahu uncharacteristically canceled his traditional briefing for the Israeli press corps. Emanuel called the meeting “positive” but offered little elaboration.

The unusual circumstances of the meeting reflect the predicament faced by both sides.

It would have been unseemly for Netanyahu, who was going to be in Washington for the General Assembly, to swing through town without having an audience with the U.S. president. But with the Obama administration trying to downplay its shift toward the Israeli position on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks—Clinton was forced to make an unscheduled trip to Cairo to allay Arab fears that Washington was easing the pressure on Israel—a highprofile meeting with the Israeli leader followed by a joint news conference could only do harm.

Thus, in his GA speech, Emanuel at once tried to assure the Jewish audience that the bond between the U.S. and Israeli administrations remained strong while still making clear that the United States is pressing Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.

Emanuel went to great lengths to make the case for Obama’s support of Israel, noting the “unbreakable” U.S.- Israeli bond. But both he and Alan Solow, the chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and a backer of Obama from the launch of his political career in the mid-1990s, also spoke of natural “differences and discussions” between the two governments.

“Unilateral actions should be avoided and cannot dictate the outcome,” Emanuel said. He added that “negotiations must address permanent-status issues: borders, refugees and Jerusalem.”

Israeli officials do not want to negotiate over Jerusalem and the right of return to Israel of Palestinian refugees.

The cancellation of Obama’s planned GA speech did not appear to be part of any calculated strategy; the president changed his plans to attend a memorial service in Texas for victims of the Fort Hood shooting rampage.

Once the scheduling change was made, the White House put together a reception for Jewish leaders. Obama came but he did not talk foreign policy. Instead, he gave a 20- minute discursion on Jewish values of charity and the importance of health care reform.

(Bureau chief Ron Kampeas and staff writer Eric Fingerhut contributed to this report from Washington.) .