Philip Klein, “Beltway Confidential,” highlights the obvious contradiction in Obama’s AIPAC speech:

[…] the most alarming aspect of the speech was when Obama managed to completely contradict himself within just two paragraphs. In one, he said that Israel couldn’t be expected to negotiate with a government that includes Hamas, while in the very next paragraph he said not negotiating wasn’t an option.

Here are the relevant paragraphs (emphasis mine):

Now, I have said repeatedly that core issues can only be negotiated in direct talks between the parties. And I indicated on Thursday that the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace. No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction. We will continue to demand that Hamas accept the basic responsibilities of peace: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, rejecting violence, and adhering to all existing agreements. And we once again call on Hamas to release Gilad Shalit, who has been kept from his family for five long years.

And yet, no matter how hard it may be to start meaningful negotiations under the current circumstances, we must acknowledge that a failure to try is not an option. The status quo is unsustainable. That is why, on Thursday, I stated publicly the principles that the United States believes can provide a foundation for negotiations toward an agreement to end the conflict and all claims – the broad outlines of which have been known for many years, and have been the template for discussions between the United States, Israelis, and Palestinians since at least the Clinton Administration.

Going into the speech, I wrote that Obama could go a long way in fixing the diplomatic dust up with Israel by vowing to cut off aid to any government that includes Hamas. But not only did he not do that, Obama now seems to be suggesting that Israel must negotiate with the terrorist group dedicated to its destruction.

Yes, there’s that. But then, this is quintessential Obama, trying to frame his message so that everyone hears precisely what it is they want to hear. The difference now being that most everyone is on to his game.

As for the issue of borders, what the left — who is dead set on pretending “extremists” and the Jewish propaganda machine are OUTRAGEOUSLY condemning a President who simply loves him the Jews (recall, he was able to bracket out all that antisemitic talk coming from the Reverend Wright’s pulpit over 20-or so years, and though he found a friend in Rashid Khalidi, it is silly to suggest he is actually sympathetic to the man’s political ideas!) — consistently glosses over, in its continued suggestion that Obama was simply (yet again) reiterating was has long been the US position on Israel (a claim shown false by the 2004 Bush letter, eg.), is Obama’s repeated use of the word “contiguous,” as well as his insistence that negotiations begin with the 1948 borders and then, through mutually agreed swaps, grant the Palestinians a state.

Neither of these demands is workable, as Netanyahu made aggressively (and blessedly) explicit in his response.

And so we are left with the clear indication that what Obama and his leftist sycophants are doing here is, as I noted early on, setting the Israelis up for UN condemnation once the UN decrees a Palestinian state and Israel refuses to surrender land. As Clarice Friedman notes in the American Thinker,

Because the president’s comment lends support to the anticipated effort to get the U.N. Security Council to mandate an Israeli return to the 1967 borders, the Obama plan is more than silly and faithless — it would mean Israel’s destruction. And any suggestion that some international peacekeepers could protect Israel after a massive shift of its population to forty-year-old boundaries is beneath consideration.

The next step, then, following Israel’s refusal to follow a UN Security Council directive, is the “just war” the Arabs will wage against the Jewish state — with the US standing on the sidelines.

And many in Israel are noting just such a thing (though in less dire language — largely because they don’t know Obama like we do):

Regarding his speech last week at the State Department in which Obama insisted Israel must make peace with the Palestinians based on the 1967 borders, the president was adamant that he had been “misrepresented several times.”

Obama agreed that Israel could not go back to the 1967 borders as they were, and that “mutually agreed” land swaps would be necessary. However, he continued to suggest that Israel’s actions were creating delays that were unacceptable to the international community.

“We cannot afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades, to achieve peace,” said Obama.

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is still in Washington, told Israel’s Ynet news portal that Netanyahu was “pleased” with Obama’s clarification regarding the 1967 borders.

Following Obama’s State Department speech last week, Netanyahu had publicly rejected the idea that Israel would surrender every inch of Judea and Samaria in a peace deal, noting that the pre-1967 borders had invited several full-scale wars and unending terorism against the Jewish state.

Other members of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party were less forgiving.

Obama “is zigzagging in accordance with whatever will bring him more votes and justify his Nobel Peace Prize,” rising Likud star Danny Danon told Israel National News.

Danon insisted that “Israel will not pay [Obama’s] private tuition as he tries to understand the essence of the conflict.”

Other Likud lawmakers credited Netanyahu’s firm stance with slightly changing Obama’s mind, and forcing the American to understand that Israel can hold just as firmly to its demands as the Palestinians.

But many Israeli commentators warned that Obama’s stated policies, even after his conciliatory AIPAC speech, remain dangerous, and should not be accepted by Israel.

Most importantly, Obama is still working off the premise that Israel must surrender an equal amount of territory to that liberated in 1967. But, UN Resolution 242, which the Palestinians use as the basis for their claims, does not explicitly define the amount of territory Israel must exchange for peace. And the document’s authors have repeatedly stated that the ommission was deliberate.

Gamal Helal, a former adviser to US presidents on Middle East affairs, told the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that what Obama has done is adopt the Arab line concerning negotiations.

Helal noted that for the Arabs – from the Egyptians to the Jordanians to the Palestinians – the 1967 borders have always been the starting point for any peace process, since they don’t believe they should lose any territory as a result of their past efforts to destroy Israel.

“The US stance in all the past years has been to agree to the solutions agreed by the sides through the negotiations without the United States stipulating anything so that this stipulation would not be an obstacle at the negotiations,” said Helal.

He continued: “This new thesis, which President Obama presented in his Thursday’s speech, supports the Arab viewpoint, and is a basic hindrance for the Israeli side, which links the size of Israel before 1967 to the ability to defend it, as the Israelis say that if Israel is of small area, it will be difficult to defend it.”

Helal further explained that up until now, the Palestinians had been forced to reluctantly accept that the 1967 borders would be achieved at the conclusion of successful negotiations. Now, Obama has helped them to once again make the 1967 borders the starting point of Arab demands.

[my emphases]

But don’t worry, folks. It has always been US policy that the starting point for negotiations is to accept the demands of the aggressors for a do over.