Ron Kampeas spots Chuck Schumer avoiding a fairly straightforward question from Jake Tapper on Obama’s assault on Israel:

TAPPER: The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Achronoth quoted an anonymous confidante to Prime Minister Netanyahu calling President Obama “The greatest disaster for Israel, a strategic disaster.” I’m sure you have some constituents who share those views and perhaps those concerns. Do you think that the White House has behaved toward Israel and the prime minister of Israel as you would want them to?

SCHUMER: Well let me say this: I think everybody here in the United States, virtually everybody, and the vast majority of Israelis, want peace, they’re willing to accept a two state solution. The best way to bring about that peace is let the two sides negotiate and bring them together. I think one of the problems we have faced in the Middle East is that too many of the Palestinians, they elected Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction, don’t really believe in peace. And I do believe that you have to let the two parties come together. If the United States imposes preconditions, particularly on the Palestinian and Arab side, they’ll say we won’t come and negotiate.

Tapper didn’t follow up, and Schumer escaped unscathed. But perhaps Schumer’s constituents deserve an answer. After all, Schumer  fancies himself a great friend of Israel and gave a robust speech at AIPAC declaring Iran engagement a failure. In the past he’s signed on to resolutions affirming Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. So there are two possibilities: (1) he’s changed his mind and now agrees that we need more daylight between the U.S. and Israel, or 2) he’s appalled by Obama’s onslaught but lacks the political courage to speak up. Which is it?