Fears of Lasting Rift as Obama Battles Pro-Israel Group on Iran

WASHINGTON — President Obama had a tough message for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, the powerful pro-Israel group that is furiously campaigning against the Iran nuclear accord, when he met with two of its leaders at the White House this week. The president accused Aipac of spending millions of dollars in advertising against the deal and spreading false claims about it, people in the meeting recalled.
So Mr. Obama told the Aipac leaders that he intended to hit back hard.
The next day in a speech at American University, Mr. Obama denounced the deal’s opponents as “lobbyists” doling out millions of dollars to trumpet the same hawkish rhetoric that had led the United States into war with Iraq. The president never mentioned Aipac by name, but his target was unmistakable.

Ronald Reagan opposed Aipac when he defied Israeli objections over the sale of Awacs reconnaissance planes to Saudi Arabia in 1981. A decade later, George H. W. Bush took on the group during a fight over housing loan guarantees for Israel, saying he was just “one lonely little guy” going up against a thousand lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
But the tone of the current dispute is raising concerns among some of Mr. Obama’s allies who say it is a new low in relations between Aipac and the White House. They say they are worried that, in working to counter Aipac’s tactics and discredit its claims about the nuclear accord with Iran, the president has gone overboard in criticizing the group and like-minded opponents of the deal.
“It’s somewhat dangerous, because there’s a kind of a dog whistle here that some people are going to hear as ‘it’s time to go after people,’ and not just rhetorically,” said David Makovsky, a former Middle East adviser for the Obama administration and now an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. But Aipac’s claims, he said, had been just as overheated. “There’s almost a bunker mentality on both sides.”
Mr. Obama’s advisers strongly disputed the suggestion that he used coded language to single out Aipac when he said in his American University speech that “many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.”
“This has nothing to do with anybody’s identity; this is a policy difference about the Iranian nuclear program,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. “We don’t see this as us versus them,” Mr. Rhodes added, predicting that the White House and Aipac would work closely in the future on other matters, including Israeli security. “This is a family argument, not a permanent rupture.”
But for now, the struggle is critical for Mr. Obama, who regards the agreement — which lifts some sanctions against Iran in exchange for restrictions aimed at restraining its ability to obtain a nuclear weapon — as a landmark achievement. He is fighting to rally enough Democratic support to preserve the deal ahead of a September vote on it in the Republican-led Congress. Aipac is working to deny him that by leaning hard on Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who on Thursday announced his opposition.
The group had sent 60 activists to Mr. Schumer’s office to lobby him last week, while Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, an offshoot Aipac formed to run at least $25 million in advertising against the deal, ran television spots in New York City. As Mr. Schumer deliberated, he spoke with Aipac leaders, but also with representatives of the pro-Israel group J Street, which supports the deal.
The White House courted Mr. Schumer heavily even though officials always suspected he would oppose the agreement, they said Friday. “I don’t know if the administration’s been outlobbied,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Thursday before Mr. Schumer’s announcement. “We certainly have been outspent.”
Besides individual meetings with Mr. Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Wendy R. Sherman, the chief negotiator, Mr. Schumer had three hourlong meetings with members of the negotiating team, who answered 14 pages of questions from him.
Mr. Schumer hashed out further details with Mr. Kerry, Ms. Sherman and Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz in a recent dinner at the State Department. Mr. Obama, in the White House meeting with Aipac leaders, sharply challenged the group after one of its representatives, Lee Rosenberg, a former fund-raising bundler for Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, said the administration was characterizing opponents of the deal as warmongers, according to several people present, who would speak about the private meeting only on the condition of anonymity. The meeting included some 20 leaders of other Jewish organizations.
“Words have consequences, especially when it’s authority figures saying them, and it’s not their intent, perhaps, but we know from history that they become manipulated,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, repeating a concern he had raised directly with Mr. Obama during the closed-door session. “Of all political leaders,” Mr. Hoenlein added, “he certainly should be the most sensitive to this.”
Mr. Obama told the visitors he would be careful with his remarks, but quickly pointed out that Aipac was spending $20 million to campaign against the agreement and was sending hundreds of activists to Capitol Hill armed with what he called inaccuracies to persuade lawmakers to reject the deal. He complained about advertising that portrayed him as an appeaser by comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who signed the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938.
Aipac says it is not behind those ads, and that its arguments with Mr. Obama are about the deal, not him. And the group denies it lobbied for the war in Iraq, on which it did not take an official position. “This critical national security debate is certainly not about an organization but rather about a deal which we believe will fail to block an Iranian nuclear weapon and will fuel terrorism,” said Marshall Wittmann, an Aipac spokesman. “We hope that all those who are engaged in this debate will avoid questioning motives and employing any ad hominem attacks.”
The friction between Mr. Obama and Aipac over the Iran deal has been building for months. Last week, as Mr. Obama made his way back from Africa on Air Force One, White House officials learned that Aipac would be flying 700 members from across the country to Washington to pressure their members of Congress to reject the deal. Mr. Obama’s team asked to brief the group at the White House, and was told instead to send a representative to the downtown Washington hotel where the activists were gathering before their Capitol Hill visits, according to people familiar with the private discussions.
Ms. Sherman; Adam J. Szubin, the Treasury official who handles financial sanctions; and Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, all made presentations to the group, but were barred from taking questions to further explain it. White House officials said they were told from the start there would be no questions, while Aipac supporters said that they would have allowed questions but that there was no time.
Whatever the case, Mr. Obama took offense and later complained at the White House to Aipac leaders that they had refused to allow Ms. Sherman and other members of his team to confront the “inaccuracies” being spread about the agreement, leaving him to defend the deal to wavering lawmakers who had been fed misinformation about it.
“You couldn’t miss the message that he was sending,” one person seated at the table said, “of, ‘That’s not O.K. with me, and it will be answered.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/world/middleeast/fears-of-lasting-rift-as-obama-battles-pro-israel-group-on-iran.html?smid=tw-share

At last!  Now what he needs to do it cut back on the billions that Israel is given.

Sassy proving again why she is racist against Israeli's
So a disagreement over a deal with Iran wants her to see Israel weakened.
Why would anyone want to see that happen unless they want the country over taken.
The only real democratic country in the area with laws that protect the rights of people she wishes to be other taken and replaced with a theocracy.
Got to hand it to the lefts, they certainly take racism to new levels

I do think that this time Israel has lost its virginity in America, thanks to Netanyahu's dalliance with Republicans at the very moment when they are imploding.

Bad mistake...particularly when most of American Jewry is on the other side. You'd think that Israel, of all nations, would have better strategic analysts on American politics to advise Netanyahu. One wonders.

Original Quill wrote:I do think that this time Israel has lost its virginity in America, thanks to Netanyahu's dalliance with Republicans at the very moment when they are imploding.

Bad mistake...particularly when most of American Jewry is on the other side.  You'd think that Israel, of all nations, would have better strategic analysts on American politics to advise Netanyahu.  One wonders.

Only a left wing twat would back a Theocracy and not back Israel who actually provides human rights to people. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but when do you speak put on human rights in many Muslim majority countries where people have little rights?

Cuchulain wrote:

Original Quill wrote:I do think that this time Israel has lost its virginity in America, thanks to Netanyahu's dalliance with Republicans at the very moment when they are imploding.

Bad mistake...particularly when most of American Jewry is on the other side.  You'd think that Israel, of all nations, would have better strategic analysts on American politics to advise Netanyahu.  One wonders.

Only a left wing twat would back a Theocracy and not back Israel who actually provides human rights to people. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but when do you speak put on human rights in many Muslim majority countries where people have little rights?

Fook Archie, that doesn't even make sense.  Speak English, fgs.

You have lost sight of whom you are talking to...I am not speaking on behalf of any Muslim country.  I am not Muslim.  I'm the American, remember?  I'm the guy who pays Israel's bills.  And I'm wondering what I am getting for my money.

Netanyahu?  Another RW nut-case?  Which is better...Netanyahu or Trump?  They look pretty evenly matched.

Speak English?
What a racist twat
You have lost sight of how Muslims suffer in Muslim countries you idiot. Seriously if you had something intelligent to say the world would stop spinning on its axes. I cannot stand left wing appeasers, they are gutless and ensure genocide will come with their idiotic biew

Cuchulain wrote:Speak English?
What a racist twat
You have lost sight of how Muslims suffer in Muslim countries you idiot. Seriously if you had something intelligent to say the world would stop spinning on its axes. I cannot stand left wing appeasers, they are gutless and ensure genocide will come with their idiotic biew

Such a stupid, irrational imbecile.  Take a look at the thread title, ass-eyes.  Where does it say anything about Muslims?  We are talking about politics in Washington, ignorant duck face.

Lacking the brains god gave even a little green apple, you flit all over the place.  One minute it's Iran and nukes, the next it's ISIL, then on to wahhabism...which I suppose you think is some kind of finger-painting.  One of the first principles of learning how to think, is focus.  Then learn to read.  Right now, you can do neither.

Netanyahu has chosen to play the Republican game of divisiveness.  That particular game has attracted the worst of the worst to the RW in America.  We presently have Donald Trump persecuting Megyn Kelly over her menstruation cycle, because of some questions asked of him in what is laughingly called a Republican debate.  Republicans lack dignity on at least two levels here...but that's where they are.

This is the sandbox in which Netanyahu wants to play.  Of course he is increasing the distance between himself and the decent folk of America...and taking Israel with him.  The Republicans are the last of the turds of Washington, presently being flushed away.

Big mistake...aligning Israel with that sort.

What a fuckwit lefty who still cannot answer my qquestions. Only an idiot appeasers others as people did with Hitler. Iran has a government based on an ideology of Islamic hate, of which only a left wing twat would ignore. They are going to build nukes, only a fucking idiot like yourself will say otherwise. Such a people who cares little for this life will have no restraint in using such a weapon. Please continue to be a clueless fuckwit, as you do it so well. Only the left through history appease those that hate.

Cuchulain wrote:What a fuckwit lefty who still cannot answer my qquestions. Only an idiot appeasers others as people did with Hitler. Iran has a government based on an ideology of Islamic hate, of which only a left wing twat would ignore. They are going to build nukes, only a fucking idiot like yourself will say otherwise. Such a people who cares little for this life will have no restraint in using such a weapon. Please continue to be a clueless fuckwit, as you do it so well. Only the left through history appease those that hate.

You stupid pig fart. Talk about not answering questions? I'm still waiting for your 'alternative' on the Iran nuclear agreement.

And stop talking history. If you got past the 4th-grade I'd be surprised. You know two people in history: Hitler and Chamberlain, and that's because it was in your 3rd-grade primer.

How many ways can you conceive of avoiding the question: you want an argument for war with Iran, don't you? You want war with anyone different, eh? All ignorant people think that war is the answer. It's the conservative Br'er Bear answer for everything: "I's jis gonna knock yo head clean OFF".

What a waste of a debate with an idiot who cannot answer simple questions.
Fuck off lefty scum, you deserve anything that happens to you

Cuchulain wrote:What a waste of a debate with an idiot who cannot answer simple questions.
Fuck off lefty scum, you deserve anything that happens to you

Ignorant cunnis!

Original Quill wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:What a waste of a debate with an idiot who cannot answer simple questions.
Fuck off lefty scum, you deserve anything that happens to you

Ignorant cunnis!

The female anatomy is beautiful you sexist twat

I'll always think of you...

That you admit being a sexist twat?
Well done

Webster's College Dictionary wrote:twat (twɑt)

n. Vulgar Slang.

the vulva or vagina.

[1650–60; orig. uncertain]

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

I don't use vulgar slang. I do however speak Latin.