I wouldn't be surprised if AIPAC and the Israeli right come to regret their part in goading the GOP to such ridiculous rhetoric. It's completely understandable why they've taken such a path; it's been incredibly helpful in handicapping Obama's ability to spur concession from Israel in the peace talks. The best example of this is Netanyahu's farcical rant on the 1967 peace lines; ignoring the fact that every US president in the last quarter century has supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines with land swaps, Bibi *himself* took the position not that long ago. So the 'manufactured outrage' as a commenter below mentioned, was actually a creation of the right and of Netanyahu; the right wanted to smear Obama as betraying Israel, and Netanyahu wanted to preempt any pressure from Obama to make a peace deal Bibi's parliamentary coalition wouldn't like. The fact that Obama was simply repeating what has been US policy for decades didn't prevent this smear from being dismayingly effective.
Netanyahu, thus preempting an push from the US towards peace, has repeated this tactic when necessary, showing the Obama administration for the patsy it has become. Israel, like most countries (mine included), is often prone to near-sighted thinking. As the West Bank's population grows and Israeli settlements become more mired into it, the ability of Israel to reach a two state consensus becomes less and less realistic. That leaves it with two options: A) give citizenship to the millions of Arab-Palestinians living within Israel's new borders and effectively lose it's identity as a Jewish state, or B) Permanently enclose the West Bank within Israel's spiderweb of settlements, wall it off, and run the worlds newest, most explosive apartheid state.
Everyone who talks of how 'Palestinians doesn't want peace' and 'The Arabs will accept peace when Israel is run into the sea" are missing the point: even if 95% percent of Palestinians would rather Israel cease existing, it won't change the fact that Israel must still make peace, lose it's democracy, or lose it's identity. Or purge all the Palestinians. However that last option sounds a bit too much like a 'final solution' for it to go over well with the rest of the world.
If you don't believe me, then go read Goldblog or Megan McArdle; both of whom are far smarter than I and considerably less liberal. Israel is in the terrible situation of being surrounded by enemies, and unless it plans on fighting till judgement day, it must start making some hard decisions.
I would wager these decisions will become harder in the near future as a result of picking sides in American politics. It's one thing to lobby its main Ally to continue supporting it, it's quite another to seemingly court the favor of the most unbalanced set of presidential candidates in recent history at the risk of alienating a generation of young Americans, Jews among them. How do you think it makes Israel look in the eyes of it's expats and Jewish diaspora when reactionaries like Gingrich and Perry vie to be the first to sacrifice American interests in the Middle-East for Israel?
