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OBAMA AND ISRAEL
 
Barack Obama's views regarding Israel are reflected in the actions he has taken, the words hehas spoken, and the associations he has cultivated throughout the course of his adult life -- andmost importantly, throughout his political career. Below are some of the more noteworthyexamples, starting in the early 1990s and continuing through the present day:
Obama's longtime association with the rabidly anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright:
For nearly two decades, Barack Obama was a member of Rev.Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama described Wright as his “spiritual advisor,” his “mentor,” and “one of thegreatest preachers in America.” Moreover, Obama contributed large sums of money to Wright's church,and he chose Wright to perform his wedding ceremony and to baptize his two young daughters.Wright has long been a vocal critic of Israel and Zionism, which he has blamedfor inflicting “injusticeand … racism” on the Palestinian people. According to Wright, Zionism contains an element of “whiteracism.”LikeningIsrael’s treatment of the Palestinians to South Africa’s treatment of blacks during the apartheid era, Wright advocates divestment campaigns targeting companies that conduct any businessin, or with, Israel. He has referred to Israel as a "dirty word," assertingthat "ethnic cleansing [by] the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity."On December 4, 2007, Wright was named as a member of the Obama presidential campaign's newlycreated African American Religious Leadership Committee.But Wright was compelled tostep down  from the Committee three months later, after videotapes of his many hate-filled sermons had ignitedfierce public debate and criticism. For further information about Wright and his anti-Semitism,click here.
Obama's ties to Rashid Khalidi and the the Arab American Action Network:
During his Illinois state senate years in the mid- to late 1990s, Obama was a lecturer at the Universityof Chicago Law School, where he became friendly withRashid Khalidi,a professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Obama and his wife were regular dinner guestsat Khalidi’s Hyde Park  home. In 1995 Khalidi and his wife Mona had founded theArab American Action Network (AAAN),noted for its contention that Israel’s creation in 1948 was a "catastrophe" for Arab people. In 2001 andagain in 2002, theWoods Fund of Chicago, with Obama serving on its board, made grants totaling$75,000 to AAAN.In 2003 Obama attendeda farewell party in Khalidi’s honor when the latter was preparing to leave Chicago to embark on a new position at Columbia University. At this event, Obama paid public tributeto Khalidi as someone whose insightshad been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases … It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue thatconversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table,” butaround “this entire world.” Khalidi then returned the compliments, telling the largely pro-Palestinianattendees that Obama deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat,stating,“You will not have a  better senator under any circumstances.”
Obama's ties to Ali Abunimah, former vice president of the Arab American Action Network:
 
Onetime AAAN vice presidentAli Abunimahof Electronic Intifada(a website that, like AAAN, refers to Israel’s creation as a "catastrophe") oncetoldinterviewer Amy Goodman: “I knew Barack Obama for many years as my state senator -- when he used to attend events in the Palestinian community inChicago all the time. I remember personally introducing him onstage in 1999, when we had a major community fundraiser for the community center in Deheisha refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.And that’s just one example of how Barack Obama used to be very comfortable speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation.”In June 2007 Abunimahrecalled: “When Obama first ran for the Senate in 2004, the
Chicago Jewish News
interviewed him on his stance regarding Israel’s security fence. He accused the Bushadministration of neglecting the ‘Israeli-Palestinian’ situation and criticized the security fence built byIsrael to prevent terror attacks: ‘The creation of a wall dividing the two nations is yet another exampleof the neglect of this administration in brokering peace,’ Obama was quoted as saying.”In March 2007 Abunimahsaid: “The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at agathering in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to securethe Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time pollsshowed him trailing. As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. Heresponded warmly, and volunteered, ‘Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, butwe are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.’ He referredto my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli andU.S. policy, ‘Keep up the good work!’”
Candidate Obama publicly criticizes Israel's conservative Likud Party:
In February 2008, then-U.S. Senator (and presidential candidate) Barack Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel."When Obama made that assertion,Likud had already been out of power for two years, and the country was being led by the centrist Kadimagovernment (of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, and Shimon Peres) which had been pursuing territorialcompromise of unprecedented magnitude. Moreover, as the
Wall Street Journal 
  points out:"It was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza."
Obama expresses willingness to meet with hostile governments "without preconditions":
During a February 2008 debatewith rival presidential candidateHillary Clinton, Obama announced that, unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would be willing to meet with hostile governments “without preconditions.” He justified this position by asserting that it was critical for the United States to “talk toits enemies.”
President Obama's first call to a foreign leader was to Palestinian Authority president MahmoudAbbas:
Two days after his inauguration, President Obama made his first phone call to a foreign leader --Palestinian Authority PresidentMahmoud Abbas.
Candidate Obama's reluctance to publicly refer to terrorism against Israel:
When running for President, then-Senator Obamareferred,in his July 2008 Berlin speech, to the need
 
to “dismantle the [terrorist] networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; inWashington and New York.” He made no mention of Israel.
President-elect Obama chooses the leader of a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group to recite aprayer during his January 2009 inauguration:
Obama choseIngrid Mattson -- then-president of the Islamic Society of North America(ISNA), a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group that had previously been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in aHamasterror-funding case --to recite a prayer during his inauguration ceremonies in January 2009. The Muslim Brotherhood, which is the ideological forebear of both Hamas and al Qaeda, openly  promotes the establishment of a worldwide Islamic caliphate and is bitterly hostile towards Israel. Notonly did Obama fail to ask Mattson to explain ISNA’s links to the Brotherhood and Hamas, but hesent his senior adviser,Valerie Jarrett, to be the keynote speaker at ISNA’s national convention later thatyear.
Obama's ties to the International Crisis Group, and their implications for Israel:
President Obama has long had a high regard for the political acumen of Robert Malley, MideastDirector of theInternational Crisis Group
 
(ICG). Over the years, Malley has pennednumerous articlesand op-eds condemning Israel, exonerating Palestinians, urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel tosome degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemiessuch as Syria,Hezbollah,and Hamas. In 2007 Malley, a Harvard-trained lawyer, became a foreign-  policy advisor to the Obama presidential campaign. But in mid-2008, the Obama campaign was forced-- out of political necessity -- tosever its tieswith Malley after the
Times of London
revealed that hehad secretly been in regular contact with Hamas leaders as part of his work for ICG. Notwithstanding Malley's fall from grace, Obama's foreign policies have been, from the outset of his presidency, very much aligned with the recommendations of the ICG. For one, Obama has oftenemphasized his willingness to negotiate with even the most unyielding enemies of the United States,and has sought to persuade Israel to take that same approach. Six days after his inauguration, for instance, Obama grantedhis first television interview as U.S. Presidentto
 Al Arabiya
, a Dubai-basednetwork, where hestated: “[A]ll too often the United States starts by dictating ... and we don’t alwaysknow all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen.” He subsequentlycalledon Israel to drop its“preconceptions” and to negotiate for peace withHamas, the terrorist organization whose founding charter remains irrevocably committed to the permanent destruction of Israel and the mass murder of Jews. Obama further  signaledan eagerness to conduct “unconditional talks” on nuclear matters with Iran -- even as as that nation was actively supplying high-tech weaponry to HamasandHezbollah, and even after its president had repeatedly declared that "Israel must be wiped off the map."
Obama's ties to J Street:
President Obama has also demonstrated an ideological compatibility withJ Street, an organizationwhich believes that peace between Arabs and Israelis depends wholly upon the development of “a newdirection for American policy in the Middle East,” a direction that recognizes "the right of thePalestinians to a sovereign state of their own”—where Palestine and Israel exist “side-by-side in peaceand security." Toward this end, J Streetsupports“diplomatic solutions over military ones,”“multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution,” and “dialogue over confrontation.”Israel’s partner in such a dialogue would necessarily beHamas,which holds the reins of political power  in Gaza and steadfastly denies Israel’s right to exist. Yet J Street has cautioned Israel not to be too
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