Obama: Don't equate 'pro-Israel' and 'pro-Likud'

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"Barack Obama faulted elements in the pro-Israel community that he says equate being pro-Israel with being pro-Likud.

"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel," the Illinois senator and contender for the Democratic presidential nominee told a group of Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Sunday. "If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress."

The Likud Party, in the Israeli opposition, advocates minimal territorial concessions to the Palestinians and promotes settlement in the West Bank.

Obama was addressing a series of attacks, most from Republicans, that suggest that he has surrounded himself with anti-Israel advisers. He noted that he did not take the advice of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration national security adviser named in some of the attack e-mails.

Obama explained that he accepted Brzezinski's endorsement, based on shared views on ending the Iraq war, but did not share Brzezinski's critical views of Israel. Nonetheless, he cautioned against marginalizing those with different views.

"Frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward," he said."

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be enough for people to see that he disregards the human rights of Palestinians as most Israeli leaders, and that he is unlikely to listen to the human rights community on this issue.

Shouldn't that be enough? They want him to change his name too?

"Pro-Israel" doesn't mean "pro-Likud."

They have very few supporters in the US outside of AIPAC.

The book on the Israel Lobby has much to say about AIPAC.

there are lots of left-wing Israelis and pro-Israelis, who hate the Likud and similar parties; but this is often ignored - by a significant number of pro-Israeli people and by almost all anti-Israeli people.

Not.

It will be interesting to see what happens after Obama is president. Hopefully he'll ask all the hard questions and hold all parties' feet to the fire, recognizing that EVERY major party in Israel participates in the occupation catastrophe.

I'm sure you have also experienced in your travels that it seems to be easier to have a rational conversation about the issue with real live Israelis than with many of their American supporters.

Could you imagine a Gideon Levy, Amira Hass or even a Danny Rubinstein having a regular column in the New York Times or the Washington Post?

Or as Sen Obama more tactfully put, "Obama also said he encountered more nuanced views among Israelis than Americans."

It is indeed a sad commentary about the range of debate in America. But Sen. Obama's comments are about as progressive as the current American real body politic will allow from a serious contender for the Presidency.

so long as the pro-Israel posturing doesn't get worse.

In that case, I'd vote for Nader.

I would not call what he is doing as "pro-Israel"... it is anti-Palestinian, anti-human rights, opposition to basic human rights for Palestinians that bothers me.

btw, maybe seeing mccain going down to defeat may help with the nausea that will surely come as i put the x by his name.

oh well, its only a few minutes... we can make a difference by what we do the rest of the year.

what is sadder still is that in all truth the debate is out there, however the "powers that be" and/or word police will simply not "allow" the true debate, any US politician questioning Israel's current policy is shouted down as an anti-Semite or a terrorist supporter, in the long run supporting the continued policy of say one thing and do another will in the end cost in many ways far more than sitting down and coming to an agreement.

Sadder still for me is that here on DU I have found my self asking more than once if some of the "pro-Israel" people on this forum are as pro-Israel as they are anti-Arab and the appearance of Israel supporting is an acceptable way of expressing a bigotry.

one form or another. American tradition...

Frederick Douglass, former slave, extraordinary speaker and writer, wrote in his Rochester newspaper the North Star, January 21, 1848, of "the present disgraceful, cruel, and iniquitous war with our sister republic. Mexico seems a doomed victim to Anglo Saxon cupidity and love of dominion." Douglass was scornful of the unwillingness of opponents of the war to take real action (even the abolitionists kept paying their taxes):