The enormous disappointment-generating machine that is the Obama campaign has been working overtime lately.  The latest to feel its effects is Uri Avnery:

The transparent fawning of Obama on the Israel lobby stands out more than similar efforts by the other candidates.

Why? Because his dizzying success in the primaries was entirely due to his promise to bring about a change, to put an end to the rotten practices of Washington and to replace the old cynics with a young, brave person who does not compromise his principles.

And lo and behold, the very first thing he does after securing the nomination of his party is to compromise his principles.

If it’s any consolation to Mr. Avnery, there was nothing in the AIPAC speech that compromised Obama’s principles, since this speech was almost identical to the one he gave last year and is entirely consistent with every major statement and action he has made concerning Israel.  Contrary to the hopes of his admirers and the accusations of his critics, when it comes to Israel and most of America’s Near East policy he is utterly conventional.  Avnery is right that opposing the war was a move that would not win any favour with “pro-Israel” forces, but it was much easier to take such a stand during a Democratic Senate primary in one of the most Democratic and antiwar states in America than it is during a presidential election.  The thing that should worry Obamaites about the AIPAC speech isn’t just the embarrassing pandering, but that as someone in national office Obama will not go against such a major lobby during the election, which suggests that he may never do so.  More worrying for his fans has to be the possibility that Obama gave the speech he did because he genuinely believes everything he said, and that his opposition to the war in Iraq was essentially a fluke and not at all representative of how he understands the U.S. role in the Near East and the world.  Of course, it is entirely consistent to be more or less conventionally “pro-Israel” and antiwar concerning Iraq, since almost everyone acknowledges that the war has been very bad for Israel and has empowered Iran in ways that have been detrimental to Israel, but politically it is a strange position to be in because the supporters of hawkish Israeli policies and hawkish American policies tend to align with one another.  Obama is an odd man out in this respect, since he is quite happy to support Israeli hawkishness, even to the point of unequivocally backing their counterproductive and failed war in Lebanon (he might have called it a “rash and dumb war we can believe in”), while demonstrating more prudence when it comes to the American use of force in the region.  His admirers will still say that half a loaf is better than none, but the plaintive cry of Mr. Avnery in this column is representative of a lot of Obama’s admirers who are discovering day by day that there is not much about U.S. foreign policy that Obama will change.  The thing is that he never promised he would change U.S. foreign policy in large ways–this was something that his admirers imputed to him because they assumed that it had to be true. 

Update: More lamentations about Obama’s AIPAC speech here, here, here, here and here.  Meanwhile, the Post is quite satisfied.