Hillary Clinton signals to Jewish donors: I’ll be better for Israel

[mystery-ak]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-jewish-donors-israel-119705.html

Hillary Clinton signals to Jewish donors: I’ll be better for Israel

But supporters have come away with different interpretations of where she stands on Obama’s Iran deal.

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti

7/3/15 6:33 AM EDT

Updated 7/3/15 2:02 PM EDT

Hillary Clinton is privately signaling to wealthy Jewish donors that — no matter the result of the Iranian nuclear negotiations — she will be a better friend to Israel than President Barack Obama.

But, even as donors increasingly push Clinton on the subject in private, they have emerged with sometimes widely varying interpretations about whether she would support a prospective deal, according to interviews with more than 10 influential donors and fundraising operatives.

Clinton’s private responses in some ways resemble a foreign policy Rorschach test; donors who see a deal as important to world peace have come away thinking that Clinton shares their perspective, but so, too, do donors who oppose any prospective agreement as compromising Israeli security.

Publicly, she’s expressed support for the negotiating process, which she secretly initiated during her time as secretary of state, but has also said “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

With the talks heading into the home stretch in Vienna, the issue is emerging as an early test for Clinton’s presidential campaign. She’s already struggling to balance two of her biggest strengths as a candidate — her deep foreign policy track record and her vaunted fundraising ability — and that balance could become even trickier if there’s a deal.

“Whatever way you go, there will be some people who won’t like it,” said Sarah Kovner, a prominent New York donor who is a leading bundler for Clinton’s campaign and worked in Bill Clinton’s presidential administration. “You can’t have everybody with you. You’ve got to do what you think is right for the country.”

The negotiations are of intense interest for some Jewish donors whose political giving is animated by their support for Israel. They’re being counted on by Clinton’s allies to donate huge sums for a campaign and a pair of supportive super PACs that, taken together, are expected to raise $2 billion or more.




Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-jewish-donors-israel-119705.html#ixzz3ersIzZ7C

[mountaineer]

Hillary Clinton’s two-faced Israel games
By Post Editorial Board
July 6, 2015 | 8:00pm

Will the real Hillary Clinton please stand up?

In private sitdowns with wealthy Jewish donors, Politico reports, Clinton is signaling she would be a better friend to Israel than President Obama has been.

That’s the same President Obama she served for four years as the nation’s chief foreign-affairs officer and policy-maker — including on the Middle East.

The article also notes that those who’ve spoken with Clinton have come away with different perceptions on where she stands on a prospective nuclear deal with Iran: Those who favor an agreement say she sides with them; those who oppose it say she shares their perspective.

Of course, pandering to your audience and trying to straddle both sides of a contentious issue have long been Clinton trademarks — of both Bill and Hillary.

In fact, Hillary last year launched a verbal broadside against Obama’s foreign policy, including his approach to the Middle East, telling The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg she stands solidly behind Israel and particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s been at personal odds with the White House.

Problem is, as Goldberg noted, she spent a lot of time as secretary of state publicly berating Netanyahu over his West Bank settlement policy.

Was she as big a Bibi defender behind closed doors, where she might make a difference? Or is the truth that as secretary of state, she really made no difference at all even when it came to foreign policy?

On Iran, she’s supported the negotiations process, which she began — but now says she’s been against allowing Iran any enrichment of uranium, which the current framework endorses. She insists “no deal is better than a bad deal” — but won’t say what counts as a bad deal.

Tonight, she gives her first in-depth campaign interview to CNN. It’ll be interesting to see which Hillary Clinton shows up.

[Fishrrman]

Yeah, sure...