Reproduced from The Huffington Post

Obama at AIPAC: Some Doubts Eased, Others Created

By James Zogby June 4, 2008

An excerpt

If he had stopped there, it might have been an acceptable speech to all sides, but he went further, including a deeply troubling reference to Jerusalem which he said "will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." Left unexplained, this was both unnecessarily provocative and contradictory. If the U.S. is not to "force concessions," then why predetermine the status of Jerusalem, one of the more sensitive and complicated issues in the negotiations, in a speech to AIPAC? And if Palestinians need a state that is "contiguous," "cohesive" and "prosperous," how does that occur when one has cut the heart out of the center of the West Bank? (Note: it has been a Palestinian position that Jerusalem can "remain the capital of Israel" and can "remain undivided" as long as that does not preclude the Palestinians from also having their capital in a "shared" city.)