Democrats Desert Obama on Israel

Top Democrats are making a show of standing behind Benjamin Netanyahu in his sort-of face-off with the White House, leaving President Obama more or less isolated, the Washington Post reports. In his own speech before AIPAC, Harry Reid offered a thinly-veiled jab at President Obama’s calls for a two-state solution based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders, saying, “No one should set premature parameters about borders, about building or about anything else.”

Steny Hoyer, meanwhile, said that negotiations should begin “without preconditions,” and Robert Casey drew cheers for saying that Israel’s borders “must be determined by parties on the ground.” But then, Congress was in an applauding mood yesterday—it gave Benjamin Netanyahu a whopping 29 standing ovations during his speech, ABC News reports—four more than President Obama’s State of the Union address. Obama, of course, argues that the entire controversy is overblown. Click here for what he told AIPAC. (More Benjamin Netanyahu stories.)