Ami Magazine Editor Thanks Obama

Ariela Fleisig — September 26, 2011 – 2:30 pm | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

Rabbi Avi Shafran, editor at-large of the Orthodox magazine Ami, thanked President Barack Obama for his unwavering support for Israel. Shafran’s piece was reprinted by the Philadelphia Jewish Voice.

In his op-ed, Shafran explained that the “hard facts are not up for debate”:

• The Obama administration has provided more security assistance to Israel than any American administration; 
• He has repeatedly declared (first in 2009 in Cairo during his speech to the Arab world) that the bond between the U.S. and Israel is ‘unbreakable’; 
• His Secretary of State lectured Al-Jazeera that ‘when the Israelis pulled out of Lebanon they got Hezbollah and 40,000 rockets and when they pulled out of Gaza they got Hamas and 20,000 rockets’; 
• His State Department has condemned the Palestinian Authority’s “factually incorrect” denial of the Western Wall’s connection to the Jewish people; 
• And much more. 

 

He dispelled myths regarding Obama’s Middle East policies’ consistency with prior administrations’, and praised his readiness to counter the Palestinians’ unilateral statehood initiative at the UN:

Even doubters of Mr. Obama’s good will, though, should recognize the import of the administration’s declared readiness to veto any U.N. Security Council resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood. That stance risks the U.S.‘s international political capital and may even, G-d forbid, come to threaten Americans’ safety. Might it speak more loudly about the president than his opposition to new settlements?

Shafran expressed gratitude for the Obama administration’s key role in protecting Israeli embassy guards in Cairo:

Speaking equally loudly is what happened on September 9, when Mr. Obama acted swiftly to warn Egyptian authorities that they had better protect Israeli embassy guards in Cairo besieged by a mob. When Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minster Barak were unable to reach the apparently indisposed Egyptian military leader Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spent hours hounding the Egyptian, finally reaching him at 1 AM to let him know that if anything happened to the Israelis, there would be ‘very severe consequences.’ Egyptian soldiers protected the hostages until an Israeli Air Force plane safely evacuated them.

Mr. Netanyahu later recounted that he had asked for Mr. Obama’s help and that the president had replied that he would do everything he could. ‘And so he did,’ testified the Prime Minister.  

He concluded [emphasis Shafran’s]:

Last week, in the lead-up to a Congressional election in Brooklyn  in which Jews had ample other reason to vote against the Democratic candidate, some ads presented the contest as an opportunity to ‘Send Obama a Message’-which some Jews took to mean an angry message about Israel.

Many thoughtful Jews, though, have a different message for Mr. Obama: 

Thank you. 

 

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