Wexler: Romney’s “Opposite” of Obama Would Hurt Israel

Danielle Lehrer — August 1, 2012 – 12:46 pm | Barack Obama | Election 2012 | Israel | Mitt Romney Comments (0) Add a comment

Former Representative Robert Wexler (D-FL) wrote in the Palm Beach Post that if Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney follows through with his promise to “do the opposite” of President Barack Obama on Israel, his actions will “hurt Israel.”  According to Wexler:

Last month, when Mr. Romney was asked to detail his Israel policy, he responded, ‘You can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite.’ If we take Mr. Romney at his word, doing the ‘opposite’ of what President Obama has done would mean lessening pressure on Iran, abandoning Israel at the United Nations, giving up on the peace process and slashing record-high levels of security assistance..

In Israel, Mitt Romney offered political rhetoric. He still needs to explain his foreign policy in detail to American voters and our Israeli friends. Anything less is insufficient for someone who wants to lead America on the international stage.

Wexler described what Romney would be doing the opposite of:

Mr. Obama is committed to using all tools of American power to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, including leading the toughest sanctions in history. The penalties have cost Iran’s currency half its value against the dollar, unemployment there is expected to reach 16 percent this year and oil exports have fallen 50 percent. The president has also made clear that all options, including military force, are on the table and that containment is not an option.

Just as President Obama is standing up to Iran, he is standing up for Israel before the international community. When the Palestinians tried to circumvent negotiations and seek unilateral statehood recognition, the president led a successful international campaign to block it and declared at the United Nations that ‘efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will be met only by the unshakable opposition of the United States.’

When a mob attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo last September, President Obama intervened to ensure the safety of the imperiled Israelis. When the anti-Israel Goldstone Report was released, he condemned it. When the U.N. held the Israel-bashing Durban Conference, he boycotted it. Mr. Obama has time and again protected Israel from international attempts to isolate and delegitimize it…. 

When Mr. Obama went to Israel in 2008, he held substantive discussions with a range of leaders. He visited Sderot and vowed to help defend its citizens from rocket attacks. He went to Yad Vashem and repeated the pledge of ‘Never Again.’ His support for Israel was clear then, and is so today.

Mr. Obama supported a moment of silence at the London Olympics in tribute to the 11 Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Games. Guri Weinberg, son of the slain wrestling coach, noted that ‘no other U.S. president has ever come out this way on behalf of the Munich victims.’

And Mr. Romney proudly says he would do the opposite?

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