Jewish donors and fund-raisers are warning the Obama reelection campaign that the president is at risk of losing financial support because of concerns about his handling of Israel.
Some Jewish donors say President Barack Obama has pushed Israeli leaders too hard to halt construction of housing settlements in disputed territory, a longstanding element of U.S. policy. Some also worry that Mr. Obama is putting more pressure on the Israelis than the Palestinians to enter peace negotiations, and that the president has allowed relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fray.
One top Democratic fund-raiser, Miami developer Michael Adler, said he urged Obama campaign manager Jim Messina to be "extremely proactive" in countering the perception in the Jewish community that Mr. Obama is too critical of Israel.
He said his conversations with Mr. Messina were aimed at addressing the problems up front. "This was going around finding out what our weaknesses are so we can run the best campaign," said Mr. Adler, who hosted a fund-raiser at his home for Mr. Obama earlier this year.
"Good friends tell you how to can improve. They don't tell you `everything's great' and then you find out nobody buys the food in your restaurants," he said.
The Obama campaign has asked Penny Pritzker, Mr. Obama's 2008 national finance chairwoman, to talk with Jewish leaders about their concerns, Ms. Pritzker said. So far, she said, she's met with about a half dozen people. She said the campaign is in the process of assembling a larger team for similar outreach.
"I do think there's an education job to be done, because there's lots of myths that abound and misunderstandings of the administration's record," she said. "The campaign is aggressively getting the information out there."
It is difficult to assess how widespread the complaints are, but Jewish fund-raisers for Mr. Obama say they regularly hear discontent among people who donated to Mr. Obama in 2008.
Robert Copeland, a Virginia Beach, Va., developer, who has made large donations to many Democrats, has already decided he wouldn't vote for Mr. Obama in 2012. "I'm very disappointed with him," he said. "His administration has failed in Israel. They degraded the Israeli people."
Malcolm I. Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said he saw potential for the discontent to affect Mr. Obama's fund raising.
"It's that people hold back, people don't have the enthusiasm and are not rushing forward at fund-raisers to be supportive,'' he said. "Much more what you'll see is holding back now."
An Obama campaign spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Messina's conversations with donors, but said the campaign would reach out to Jewish donors and expected strong support. She also directed questions to Ken Solomon, an Obama fund-raiser and CEO of the Tennis Channel, who said any problems were minimal and that most Jewish voters were concerned about many issues, not just Israel.
Mr. Adler says he does not doubt Mr. Obama's commitment to Israel but thinks the White House needs to do a better job communicating its support.
Three opportunities come in the next four days: On Thursday, Mr. Obama gives a speech about U.S. policy in the Middle East and North Africa, and on Friday he meets with Mr. Netanyahu. On Sunday, Mr. Obama addresses the largest pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
In his AIPAC speech, Mr. Obama is expected to argue that the U.S.-Israeli alliance is strong and cite his backing for initiatives such as the Iron Dome missile defense system, which is positioned near the Gaza border and has already intercepted incoming short-range rockets.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D., Fla.), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said the speech on Sunday should help set the record straight. "There's nothing like hearing it straight from the president of the United States—his expression that he is strongly pro-Israel." Some say the appointment of Ms. Wasserman-Schultz, who is Jewish, to run the DNC, is helpful in itself.
Some of Mr. Obama's Jewish supporters hope he will visit Israel as a symbolic show of support after having visited several Muslim nations. At a small listening session this year with Mr. Messina in Palm Beach, Fla., one donor asked if Mr. Obama would do so.
"It's definitely on the schedule tentatively out there," he responded, according to Nancy Gilbert, an Obama supporter who was at the session. She said the 30 or so people present were happy to hear that a trip was at least under consideration.
In 2008, Jewish voters accounted for 2% of the electorate, according to exit polls. Some 78% of Jewish voters backed Mr. Obama, a better showing than the 74% who backed the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry.
Some of the misgivings among Jewish supporters can be traced to specific incidents that resonated in the Jewish community. Last year, for example, Israeli media suggested Mr. Obama had snubbed Mr. Netanyahu and an Israeli delegation by leaving a White House meeting early.
The White House and Israeli officials disputed that characterization. But the incident left a lasting impression. "It was a snub," said former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who campaigned for Mr. Obama in 2008. "My feeling was that the president was hostile to Israel."
Mr. Koch, a Democrat, said he had been considering voting Republican in 2012, but then he saw the House proposal for privatizing Medicare for younger workers, which he opposes. He now expects to support Mr. Obama again.
Still, Republicans see an opening. In April, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition that Mr. Obama should have delivered criticism of Israel's settlement policy privately. And last year, a poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that 46% of American Jews said they would consider voting for someone other than Mr. Obama.
Obama and his administration launched a proxy war on Israel and Jews around the world with ultimate objective of "FINAL SOLUTION": eliminating the State of Israel and committing Holocaust in Israel and worldwide.
ReplyDeleteIn compliance with the 1920 League of Nations Resolution, two-state solution was implemented in 1922 when british administration of occupied Israel allocated more than 70% of Israel territory to palestinian arabs and created Transjordan (now Jordan) where today over 90 percent of the population identify themselves as Palestinian Arabs. Every party, including UN, EU, US, etc., must respect League of Nations Resolutions, adopted and accepted by UN. Therefore, all so called "palestinians" must be relocated there. Enough stealing Israel land. Britain and Jordan must compensate Israel for stolen land and natural resources.
History of "palestinians":
Article 24 of the 1964 PLO Charter addressed to UN stipulates: "Palestinian muslims do not claim West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza their territories”
In 1977, an executive committee member of the PLO Zahir Muhsein confirmed that there is no such thing as a separate “palestinian” people of Arab descent. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 31, 1977, he stated the following: "The palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.”
In 1948, Bernadotte, mediator between Jews and Arabs appointed by the UN General Assembly, noted in his journal that the "Palestinian" Arabs had little desire for independence:
“The Palestinian Arabs had at present no will of their own. Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism. The demand for a separate Arab state in Palestine is consequently relatively weak. It would seem as though in existing circumstances most of the Palestinian Arabs would be quite content to be incorporated in Transjordan.”
In 1947, Arab leaders protesting the UN partition plan argued that Palestine was part of Syria and “politically, the Arabs of Palestine (were) not (an) independent separate … political entity.”
In 1946, Arab historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that "there is no such thing as Palestine in history.”
Arab leaders like Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937: "There is no such country as 'Palestine'; 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented!"
Western media must stop broadcasting and publishing fraudulent, fake, false, and lie information on Israel and Jews. Current situation, specifically in Europe, is quite similar to 1930s, however, we, Jews, learned our lessons and will not hesitate to give appropriate response to any mortal attacks on us.
UN and EU officials, who is only educated in Geobbelse propaganda principles and whose only objective is to renew Hitler's and muslim’s agenda of final solution, must be arrested and put on trial for crimes against humanity. They must remember Nuremberg and consequences they will face, as the World learned the 1920’s-40’s lessons and will not let anybody to repeat Holocaust, invented and implemented by Nazi and palestinian fascists.