Fmr. Rep. Mel Levine: “Obama is a True Friend to Israel”

Lauren Samet — September 20, 2011 – 2:55 pm | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel | Stop the Smears Comments (1) Add a comment

Writing in The Huffington Post, former Representative Mel Levine (D-CA) discredited the most widely circulated smears regarding President Barack Obama and his relationship with Israel. Proving that Obama is in fact a “true friend to Israel,” Levine’s argument consisted of three components: a review of Israeli leaders’ support for Obama, a rectification of the most widely circulated false charges about Obama’s relationship with Israel, and a presentation of specific pro-Israel actions the president has taken.  

Levine included the following statements of enthusiastic support for Obama from Israeli leaders:

Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his deep gratitude to President Obama for intervening with Egyptian authorities to rescue Israeli diplomats in Israel’s Embassy in Cairo, several weeks ago. Former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy called President Obama’s actions ‘leadership of historic dimensions.’

Defense Minister Barak said he ‘can hardly remember a better period of [U.S. military] support.’ And Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that U.S.-Israel defense cooperation is ‘unprecedented’.

President Shimon Peres said: ‘Thank you, President Obama, for your deep and moving and unwavering commitment to the peace and security of our land.’ And Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ambassador to the US during the George W. Bush years, Danny Ayalon, recently stated: ‘We have not had a better friend than President Obama.’

Additionally Levine debunked the following smears against Obama’s record:

• A claim that President Obama asked Israel to return to the 1967 borders. This is flatly false. Defense Minister Barak explicitly stated that ‘The President [Obama] did not say that Israel should go back to the 1967 borders.’ And, to quote Prime Minister Netanyahu: ‘As President Obama said, the border will be different from the one which existed on June 4, 1967.’
• An anonymous claim that the President sought to put ‘daylight’ between the United States and Israel at a White House meeting. This claim has been contradicted by a number of participants in that meeting who say this absolutely did not happen.
• A distortion of a speech by President Obama at the U.N. General Assembly, where the President said that the U.S. does not support Israeli settlements—thus reiterating the policy of every American president since 1967—while at the same time he criticized Palestinian terrorism and incitement.
• A claim by some Israeli media that President Obama ‘snubbed’ Prime Minister Netanyahu at a White House meeting in the spring of 2010. This was a claim that was forcefully and thoroughly debunked by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, who participated in the meeting. Not to mention the fact that President Obama has met with Prime Minister Netanyahu seven times since Netanyahu took office.

 

Levine concluded by providing the following factual evidence proving Obama’s strong commitment to supporting Israel:

• Under President Obama, the Administration has recommended and the Congress has passed the largest-ever security assistance packages for Israel.
• To help insure Israel’s qualitative military edge, the Obama administration has greatly expanded bilateral security cooperation between the two countries. The administration has provided unprecedented missile defense funding for Israel to help negate the threat of short- and medium-range threats from Hamas and Hezbollah.
• This administration succeeded (where the prior administration did not) in obtaining the support of Russia and China at the United Nations Security Council to enact the toughest sanctions ever passed to impede the Iranian nuclear threat.
• In contrast to prior Republican administrations, whose policies undoubtedly would be viewed as pro-Israel by the Republican critics of President Obama, the Obama administration has blocked all anti-Israel Security Council resolutions at the United Nations, and has firmly opposed Palestinian attempts to unilaterally seek statehood through the United Nations rather than direct negotiations with Israel.

 

To view the article in its entirety, please click here.

 

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