<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/Story?id=3105288&page=3>
Obama at AIPAC:
Don't let the brief Clinton-Obama encounter at the AIPAC convention distract from the substance here: His speech Wednesday was a rather significant move to the right on Middle East policy.
Eleven months after saying he would sit down with Iran's leader "without precondition," Obama said Wednesday: "Contrary to the claims to some, I have no interest in sitting down with our adversaries just for the sake of talking. But as president of the United States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leaders at a time and place of my choosing if and only if it can advance the interest of the United States. That is my position. I want to be absolutely clear."
"Now Obama has put a major condition on his willingness to meet with Iran: he will meet only if such a meeting advances the interests of the U.S.," ABC's Jonathan Karl reports. "That is not much different from the Bush Administration's position on negotiations with Iran."
And, per The Boston Globe's Farah Stockman: "Barack Obama pledged unwavering support for Israel, vowed to use military force -- if necessary -- to keep Iran in check, and endorsed the idea that any peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians must preserve Israel as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital."
(He even broke out a different kind of flag pin for the occasion.)
"Addressing AIPAC -- long considered one of Washington's most influential lobbies -- has become almost a requirement for presidential candidates seeking the Jewish vote," Noam N. Levey reports in the Los Angeles Times. "But there was an added imperative for Obama, who has battled accusations that he is overly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and too willing to negotiate with Iran's controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
"For Obama, the AIPAC conference seemed like a tough room to work," Robert Dreyfuss writes for The Nation. "But, by all indications, he wowed 'em."
Hamas was listening -- they "un-endorsed" Obama, per ABC's Jake Tapper. "Obama's comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration's foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict," a Hamas official told Reuters. The sentence the Obama campaign will long cherish: "Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain."