Obama Has Been Great for Israel

BY COLIN H. KAHL | AUGUST 16, 2012

A recent Mitt Romney campaign commercial takes U.S. President Barack Obama to task for not visiting Israel during the first three-and-a-half years of his presidency. The television ad, complete with footage of the former Massachusetts governor thoughtfully contemplating the Western Wall in Jerusalem, declares that Romney "will be a different kind of president -- a strong leader who stands by our allies." A similar spot by the Emergency Committee for Israel, an advocacy group that backs Romney, charges that Obama has "traveled all over the Middle East. But he hasn't found time to visit our ally and friend, Israel.… As the dangers to Israel mount, where's Obama?"

This line of attack represents a kind of election-year Jedi mind trick -- an attempt to use the power of suggestion to create the illusion that Obama does not support Israel. But, as a recent Washington Post analysis shows, the stamps in a presidential passport are an extraordinarily poor yardstick for measuring policy.

For more than six decades, the Jewish state has enjoyed wide bipartisan backing in the United States. Yet seven of the last 11 presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman (who famously recognized Israel's independence minutes after it was declared), never made the trip. Of the four who did visit Israel, two (Richard Nixon and George W. Bush) did so only in their last year in office. What's more, as the Post's review of State Department records shows, every president who visited Israel did so only after first visiting Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

So if trekking to Tel Aviv is the exception rather than the rule, why would Romney and his allies resort to such a substance-free metric to criticize Obama's Israel policy? Because, it's all they have. As the Defense Department official with primary responsibility for enhancing Israel's defense capabilities and deepening joint military cooperation with the United States from 2009 to 2011, I can attest to a different reality: No president in history has done more for Israel's security than Obama.

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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/16/obama_has_been_good_for_israel