AIPAC Attendees Positive After Obama Address

After Obama’s address to the AIPAC policy conference Sunday, attendees generally thought the president left the building with more friends than when he walked in. In fact, the vast majority of the dozen attendees FrumForum talked to immediately after the speech were positive, largely based on happiness over the president’s clarifications of his controversial remarks regarding pre-1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

In fact, only two of the attendees surveyed by FF had anything negative to say about the President’s address.

“He definitely left with more friends, yes. He squarely addressed the issue of the 1967 borders… there is no question of returning to the borders before the 1967 war – that there will be land swaps,” said Richard Ravitz of California.

“I liked what he said, he was very optimistic… he probably left with more supporters because of his clarification [about the 1967 border comment],” added attendee Marissa Herzog.

The president had mentioned in his speech that the media had misrepresented him, and that the controversy around 1967 borders had been overblown, something that attendees did not seem to buy. And yet this was not enough for one conference delegate to rate his speech as bad.

“His speech was good … he clarified his reasonable positions, and while I don’t think that the media misread him, as he claimed, people took his speech as sincere,” added Mort Lowenthal of Connecticut.

His reaffirmation of his commitment to the security of Israel was positive, added another attendee. “It was nice to hear an explanation and more details about what he said on Thursday. It is clear that he supports the existence of the state of Israel, which is nice,” said Julie Marder.

Others had been skeptical following the president’s speech on Thursday, but were swayed by the address today. “He assured me,” said Julia Kristmundsdottir of Florida. “I walked out more assured that his previous policies are still intact. Like so many, I questioned his speech on Thursday but am back to being convinced that the president fully supports Israel.”

But even that may not be enough for Kristmundsdottir, who voted for the president in 2008. “I’m not very happy with this decision,” she said, and won’t vote for him again “unless he has a horrible opponent.”

Not all the attendees were happy with the President’s speech, however. Two spoke out against the speech as tired rhetoric. “I don’t think he walked out with more friends, no,” said Floridian Sharon Deligdish. “He repeated a lot of the standard rhetoric and excuse-making for what he said the other day [during his Middle East address].”

The other negative comment came from Herzel Kranz, who criticized the president for even believing that negotiations with Palestinians were possible. “We have to deal with reality.  [There’s] the reality that [Obama] tries to set up, that these people really mean peace, but look at what they do: they want all of Israel.  How could you have peace?” said Kranz.

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