Activist: Obama’s First Year Pro-Israel

David Streeter — January 14, 2010 – 12:32 pm | Barack Obama | Democrats | Foreign Policy | Israel | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

Noted pro-Israel activist Steve Sheffey published an op-ed on The Huffington Post detailing President Barack Obama’s pro-Israel accomplishments throughout his first year. Sheffey began by dismantling the false predictions made by Republican activists during the 2008 election:

... rather than celebrate America’s bi-partisan commitment to Israel, our Republican friends continue to use Israel as a partisan football. During the 2008 campaign, they returned to their tired old playbook and bombarded us with emails about how terrible it would be for Israel if the Democrats regained control of the White House. Most of us, or at least 80% of us, saw through those lies and voted for Obama.

Obama took office nearly a year ago. His record as President is as consistently strong on Israel as he and his supporters in the pro-Israel community promised it would be. Only last month, we learned that Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge—an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency. (The Bush administration violated security related agreements with Israel in which the U.S. promised to preserve the IDF’s qualitative edge over Arab armies.)

Prior to Obama’s election, our Republican friends told us that we should ignore Obama’s statements on Israel, ignore Obama’s perfect record on Israel, ignore Obama’s vigorous outreach to the Jewish community, and instead find him guilty by distant association. They told us that Obama was like the Manchurian Candidate, and once he was elected, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi and other fellow travelers would be running the country and dictating policy on Israel. They told us that Obama might not even be committed to Israel’s survival  (I may have missed the retraction when Obama told the Arab world that America’s bond with Israel is “unbreakable”). They told us that Obama does not believe that Israel is a sovereign state ...

Sheffey then wrote a list Obama’s accomplishments, which include:

• No Administration in history has come into office with a Vice President, Secretary of State, and Chief of Staff with stronger pro-Israel credentials than this one.
• Obama fulfilled his campaign promise to boycott Durban II unless ALL of our conditions were met.
• Obama will fully fund the development and production of the Arrow 3 ballistic missile defense system.
• The Obama administration assured Israel it will continue defending Israel at the United Nations despite the allies’ dispute over West Bank settlements, Israel’s U.N. ambassador said on June 29.
• Israel’s ambassador to the United States said the Obama administration backs the Jewish state in opposing the Goldstone report.
• ... President Obama repealed the import tariffs on Israeli dairy products, making it easier for American consumers to purchase kosher dairy products. The tariffs still apply to most other countries.

Sheffey concluded:

[The list is] long, but that’s the point. It’s an impressive record for less than one year in office. The next time you hear someone questioning Obama’s pro-Israel bona fides, remind that person that Obama now has a record, and it’s one we can be proud of. As you read this list, ask yourself if this is the record of a man whose views on Israel are informed by  ‘radical Palestinian’ activists.

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