After Obama’s Victory, Jews Focus On U.S.-Israel Relations | JewishPress
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After Obama’s Victory, Jews
Focus On U.S.-Israel Relations
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By: Jacob Kamaras and Alina Dain Sharon
Published: November 7th, 2012
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Capping a race that on a national level was largely defined by the economy but
in the Jewish community turned into an extended debate over which
candidate would steer the best course for U.S.-Israel relations, President
Barack Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney on Tuesday to
earn a second term.
Obama, who as of Wednesday morning had garnered 303 electoral votes to
Romney’s 206 and was ahead in the popular vote 50-48 percent, took 69
percent of the Jewish vote, according to a CNN exit poll, representing a ninepoint drop from the 78 percent he won in 2008.
National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) President and CEO David A.
Harris, speaking exclusively with JNS after major television networks called
the race for Obama on Tuesday night, said he “and the clear majority of
American Jews” are “reassured by having President Obama in office for
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/after-obamas-victory-jews-focus-on-u-s-israel-relations/2012/11/07/0/[11/8/2012 6:47:53 PM]
After Obama’s Victory, Jews Focus On U.S.-Israel Relations | JewishPress
another four years.”
“The president has a stellar pro-Israel record,” Harris said. “The facts speak
for themselves. Whether it’s missile defense or some of the closest [U.S.Israel] security cooperation ever, or heralding an era of isolating Iran like
never before, I see…the close cooperation between the United States and
Israel continuing into and through the next four years during what’s a crucial
period for Israel’s security.”
The recent course of the U.S.-Israel relationship, however, has also included
disagreements between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, with Obama
refusing to set the “red lines” for U.S. military action that Netanyahu has
requested; in one television interview he called those demands “noise.”
More Articles from Jacob Kamaras
and Alina Dain Sharon
Just a day before the election, the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reported that
After Obama’s Victory, Jews Focus On
U.S.-Israel Relations
senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett has been leading secret talks with Iran
for several months. That story followed a New York Times story last month
Jacob Kamaras and Alina Dain Sharon
that said the U.S. had agreed to direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear
Preview
program for the time – a report denied first by the White House, then by
Published: November 7th, 2012
3
Obama himself in the third presidential debate.
Jonathan Tobin, senior online editor of Commentary magazine, told JNS that
Obama’s win will mean “probably four years of ongoing tension with the
government of Israel, which is likely to be led by the same person
[Netanyahu] with whom Obama is engaged in a long-term feud” – including
tension on Iran, especially if Obama approves an Iranian deal brokered by
Jarrett.
However, Tobin acknowledged that the “infrastructure of the [U.S.-Israel]
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alliance isn’t going anywhere.”
Fence Contractor Injured in Gaza Attack
Netanyahu congratulated Obama on his victory by saying in a statement, “The
strategic alliance between Israel and the U.S. is stronger than ever. I will
continue to work with President Obama in order to assure the interests that
are vital to the security of the citizens of Israel.”
While Israel was a widely debated election issue in the Jewish community,
“American Jews are first and foremost Americans, and like other Americans
they are concerned very much about the economy and jobs,” Harris said,
Jewish Press News Briefs
A construction worker building the security fence
along the Gaza border was lightly injured in an attack
Thursday evening. The man was injured from a
nearby explosion. It was originally thought that it was
from a mortar that had exploded nearby, but
Palestinians have been talking about an IED they
placed alongside the fence, and [...]
His Brooklyn Home Destroyed by Sandy,
Singer Mordechai Ben David Is Making
Aliyah (Video)
Yori Yanover
Only three days ago, popular singer and songwriter
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/after-obamas-victory-jews-focus-on-u-s-israel-relations/2012/11/07/0/[11/8/2012 6:47:53 PM]
After Obama’s Victory, Jews Focus On U.S.-Israel Relations | JewishPress
calling that “the president’s number one priority today and immediately.”
The battle for the Jewish vote was hotly contested in the swing states of
Florida, Ohio, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with the Republican Jewish
Coalition (RJC) running a $5 million “Buyer’s Remorse” television advertising
campaign in those states that featured Jews who supported Obama in 2008
but regretted that decision. RJC’s advertising in swing states – which also
included “Obama…Oy Vey!!” billboards in South Florida – totaled $6.5
million.
Rabbi David Steinhardt of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Fla., said
election season was “a very, very challenging period of time and a very
difficult campaign.” In his congregation, however, Steinhardt said “people
were really respectful of each other in the conversation, surprisingly so,
looking at how things began.” Steinhardt said much of the pro-Obama
sentiment in his community was “quiet support,” as opposed to the more
aggressive approach of Romney supporters during the race.
Mordechai Ben David shot and distributed a video
depicting the destruction of his neighborhood, Sea
Gate, at southwestern tip of Brooklyn, NY, in an
effort to raise awareness—and donations—to rebuild
this thriving Jewish community.
8
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Become the 51st State
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Puerto Rico voted in favor of full U.S. statehood.
2
New Jewish Mayor of San Diego Has
Dubious Record on Israel
Yori Yanover
Filner is one of a growing list of Jewish politicians
who have been embraced by J Street. And, in the
spirit of J Street's commitment to supporting Israel
by trying to destroy her, back in May of 2009, the
congressman, along with Barney Frank (D-Mass.),
refused to sign an AIPAC-backed House letter calling
for "every effort" to be made to realize an ArabIsraeli peace while laying out certain "basic
principles" to achieve it
As far as the U.S.-Israel relationship is concerned, Steinhardt believes “the
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policies will remain pretty consistent as to what they have been.” He said
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Israel “can depend on the United States as an ally in what takes place moving
forward.”
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Rabbi Misha Zinkow of Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, recalled the intense
Ensure US Support Remains Strong. Let's
Keep Israel Safe and Secure!
campaign in his state.
www.AIPAC.org
Speech Writer
“From our vantage point here in Ohio, the campaign was caustic, exploited
people’s worst fears, and was even insulting to the intelligence of voters,”
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Zinkow told JNS. “As a result, here and across the country, [Obama] will have
much healing to do.” Regarding what Obama’s victory means for Israel,
Zinkow said the U.S. and Israel “are friends and allies, regardless of who is
president.”
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Rabbi Mitchell Levine of Congregation Agudas Achim, also in Columbus,
Obama Reelection
described “a season of robust political debate” that was “healthy for
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democracy.” While the election will not likely solve what Levine called an
“underlying problem of political gridlock,” Jews still used the process to
“remain a unified people,” he told JNS.
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In South Carolina, a state Romney won, Rabbi Jonathan Case of Beth Shalom
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Synagogue in Columbia told JNS that both candidates spoke “the same
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language when it came to Israel.”
“In their televised debates and at rallies they were both forcefully arguing for
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Israel
Israel’s security and the need to fend off the potential danger from Iran,” he
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said. “Long gone are the presidential contenders who are anti-Israel.”
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Stanley Dubinsky, the director of Jewish Studies at the University of South
Carolina, said he thinks Obama’s “goals for the Middle East should be to learn
about the complex nature of politics there, so [he will] have ideas that are less
simplistic and thereby dangerous.”
“Maybe he’s learned his lesson from Syria and Libya, maybe he’ll be less
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/after-obamas-victory-jews-focus-on-u-s-israel-relations/2012/11/07/0/[11/8/2012 6:47:53 PM]
After Obama’s Victory, Jews Focus On U.S.-Israel Relations | JewishPress
naïve,” Dubinsky said. “That will be welcome.”
Although he said Obama is tacitly supporting, or at least not opposing, Islamic
radicalism in the Middle East, Dubinsky is not worried.
“That would worry me if there was a clear march of Islamic groups to
consolidate power, but in the last 12 months the Islamic world has turned into
complete chaos,” he said. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, said
the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu “is completely fine” and that
he doesn’t “expect any change regarding Israel in Obama’s second term.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Obama will not “take
revenge on Israel” in his second term and that the president “will focus on his
legacy; mostly on internal issues, on foreign policy and especially on the Arab
world.”
Commentary magazine’s Tobin told JNS that moving forward, the U.S.-Israel
relationship “will partly be defined by the attitudes” of the administration but
will also be dictated by Israel’s “antagonists” – the Palestinians and the
Iranians.
“It could be that even Barack Obama has learned his lessons about the
Palestinians and won’t be wasting any political capital – as he did
consistently, especially over his first two years in office, when trying to tilt the
diplomatic playing field in their direction only to find out that they weren’t
interested in talking, anyway,” Tobin said.
“It could be that even with his best intentions to engage with Iran or craft a
sort of secret deal or not-so-secret deal with Iran, that Iran won’t do a deal,
and that he will have then painted himself into a corner since he has pledged
never to allow them to go nuclear, and indeed in the third presidential debate
pledged that he would not allow them to have a nuclear program anyway, even
in a deal.”
“The nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship will…be defined by the decisions
that Israel’s foes make, and that’s the variable,” he said.
(JNS)
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After Obama’s Victory, Jews Focus On U.S.-Israel Relations | JewishPress
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