Leading political consultant Hank Sheinkopf offers his take on the unpredictable presidential race and internationally-renowned Middle East scholar and back-channel negotiator Dr. Stephen P. Cohen gives his expert opinion on the future of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations on this edition of Inside the Issues.

Forward Editorial Director J.J. Goldberg gets right to it asking Sheinkopf, who has worked on numerous Democratic political campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign, if he thinks it’s “the Democrats’ year to lose.” Sheinkopf dismisses the idea, insisting “it’s still a Democratic year.” Democrats — and Jewish voters — want Bush out of the White House, and despite some predictions to the contrary, if Barack Obama is chosen as the Democratic nominee, he has a good shot at winning against John McCain.

Goldberg wonders if McCain isn’t appealing to Republicans and Democrats alike, given that he’s buddies with Jon Stewart and a war hero. Plus, he’s got the support of Jewish senator Joe Lieberman. Sheinkopf notes that some have been speculating Lieberman might go for another bid as Vice President if McCain is elected, but at this point, he insists it’s anyone’s game - “Democrats can lose, Republicans can lose, and anyone who can predict the outcome today is just plain wrong.”

About the Jewish vote, Sheinkopf says it’s consistently mattering less every year because Jews tend to vote Democratic and tend to live in areas where everyone votes Democratic anyway, so Jews votes don’t swing election outcomes one way or the other.

When Goldberg asks about how Jews split between supporting Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, Sheinkopf suggests that Jews have tended to trust endorsements by trusted authorities, such as the New York Times, which endorsed Clinton, and Senator Ted Kennedy, who endorsed Obama. The candidates’ varying levels of charisma only sways the younger generation, says Sheinkopf.

There is a generational shift going on in the Jewish community’s political beliefs, just as there is in the rest of the country, Heinkopf argues. The younger generation is more individually driven and trusts Obama’s promise that “nothing will change” if they vote for him. Sheinkopf is more than a little skeptical of Obama’s abilities to govern effectively in a world where “people really want to kill us.” He declares, “we must give Obama and we must give the younger generation the opportunity to do what the Baby Boomers have done, which is to mistreat America as well, and do as good a job as we could have of protecting the future for our children, because we have failed.”

On a personal note, Goldberg asks Sheinkopf what being a Democrat means to him. He says he owes everything he is, having grown up poor, to the opportunities provided him by progressive policies and programs enacted by the Democratic party.

Turning from domestic affairs to international ones, Goldberg picks the brain of Dr. Stephen P. Cohen on current events in the Middle East, asking about the latest goings on between Gaza and Egypt. The people in Gaza are radicalizing, explains Cohen, and Egyptians have discovered they’re not honoring Egypt’s borders. This is a “turning point” because we can no longer expect Egypt to do as much as we thought they could to encourage the Palestinians to engage in peace negotiations with Israel. But Egypt is still trying, urging Hamas to limit its functions to the political arena rather than the military arena.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been pushing for a deal to withdraw from the West Bank, says Goldberg, but asks: if Hamas is directing the West Bank and refusing to strike an agreement, what can be done?

We have to reevaluate the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, answers Cohen, because Hamas continues to refuse to recognize Israel as a state, making negotiation for a two-state solution difficult. The challenge now is to think of new negotiation tactics and new ways to approach a potential deal between the two sides.

With all the problems Israel faced in the smaller-scale unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Goldberg asks, how can they even attempt to withdraw the tens of thousands of people in the West Bank? Cohen calls the Gaza withdrawal a failure on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. Any future withdrawal must include negotiations with the Palestinians. He concludes that successful negotiations must involve larger Arab forces who can sway the Palestinians to sit down at the table.

J.J.’s Editorial
On a parting note, J.J. warns against waiting for a miracle to solve the problems in the Middle East. The people living in the region need to make it happen, he insists, and America needs to play an active role in making that happen “one way or the other.”