Former Rep. Hodes: The Facts Tell the True Story of Obama’s Israel Record

Max Samis — March 8, 2012 – 10:15 am | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

This month, NJDC Board Member former Representative Paul Hodes (D-NH) wrote an op-ed in the New Hampshire Jewish Reporter defending President Barack Obama’s steadfast commitment to the State of Israel.

Hodes wrote:

Obama has provided Israel with more military assistance than any of his predecessors. As I witnessed while serving in Congress, upon his taking office, Obama restored Israel’s qualitative military edge—an advantage which diminished during President George W. Bush’s tenure. In addition, Obama provided Israel with supplemental funding for the Iron Dome missile system that continues to shield Israelis living within range of Hamas’ rockets. He also sold Israel bunker-busting bombs, which Bush adamantly opposed. Indeed there are plenty of facts supporting his words in his State of the Union address in January, when the President noted that his commitment to Israel’s security is ‘iron-clad.’

He also wrote about Obama’s defense of Israel on the global stage:

... [D]id you know that unlike any of his predecessors, Obama has voted with Israel 100 percent of the time at the U.N.? Did you also know that Obama personally ordered that Israel receive all resources necessary to combat the 2010 Carmel fire? These are accomplishments that Obama’s critics have been reluctant to acknowledge—let alone repeat— lest they give the President the credit he’s due. Further, Obama consistently asserts Israel’s legitimacy and security when addressing global audiences. His firm leadership of pro-Israel diplomacy has received praise from Israeli and American Jewish leaders alike, and it sends a firm message to the world that the U.S.-Israel bond is unbreakable.

Hodes concluded by pushing back against Obama’s right wing critics:

... Obama’s right-wing critics continue to negate these achievements and instead attack the President’s excellent record by ignoring traditional pro-Israel benchmarks and imposing double standards. In this paper, a recent op-ed attacked the President for not visiting Israel, despite his predecessor not visiting until the third year of his second term—or GOP hero President Ronald Reagan never visiting at all. Obama traveled to Israel as a presidential candidate and stood physically in solidarity with the residents of Sderot who receive the brunt of Hamas’ rockets. Indeed the Iron Dome missile shield, which saves the lives of Israelis from incoming rockets regularly, is a direct result of his visit, how it affected him and his leadership since.

These detractors continue to dangerously make Israel a partisan wedge issue—especially when they overplay longstanding policy differences that have existed between Israel and the United States, across Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

Too many of Obama’s critics— including GOP presidential candidates and some members of Congress—very unfortunately continue to spread utter fabrications regarding the President’s stellar Israel record, all with a political goal in mind: driving a wedge between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party. It is long past time for this behavior to end. American and Israeli Jews must stand together and demand that the truth about the record be known—that Obama is one of the strongest supporters of the Jewish state to ever inhabit the White House. That’s not just rhetoric; that’s a fact.

Click here to read Hodes’s full op-ed (pdf).

Click here to read the facts on the current state of U.S.-Israel relations.

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