Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 21, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 22, 2008 Page: 4 of 24
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4 I May 22,2008
Obama, Democrats slam Bush
on his speech to the Knesset
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A speech
by President Bush that was sup-
posed to have been the apotheo-
sis of U.S.-Israel solidarity instead
sparked a toxic political exchange
in the partisan battle for American
votes.
Barack Obama's swift response
to President Bush's remarks to the
Knesset about appeasing terrorists
also showed how determined the
Obama campaign is to hit back hard
against perceived smears, drawing
lessons from John Kerry's slow-foot-
ed response in 2004 to attacks on his
military record.
Bush did not specifically reference
Obama in his speech last Thursday
the high point of three days of festivi-
ties marking Israel's 60th anniver-
sary.
"Some seem to believe we should
negotiate with terrorists and radicals,
as if some ingenious argument will
persuade them they have been wrong
all along," Bush said. "We have heard
this foolish delusion before. As Nazi
tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an
American senator declared, 'Lord, if
only I could have talked to Hitler, all
of this might have been avoided.'
"We have an obligation to call
this what it is: the false comfort of
appeasement, which has been repeat-
edly discredited by history."
Obama, the U.S. senator from
Illinois and the front-runner in the
race for the Democratic candidacy in
November, has said that as president
he would meet with leaders of pariah
states, but he has rejected meeting
with terrorist groups.
However, Republicans includ-
ing Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.),
the party's presumptive presiden-
tial nominee, have likened Obama's
stance to reaching out to terrorists,
and Obama took Bush's remarks as a
swipe at him.
"It is sad that President Bush
would use a speech to the Knesset on
the 60th anniversary of Israel's inde-
pendence to launch a false political
attack," Obama said in a statement.
"Instead of tough talk and no action,
we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon
and Reagan did and use all elements
of American power — including
tough, principled and direct diplo-
macy — to pressure countries like
Iran and Syria.
"George Bush knows that I have
never supported engagement with
terrorists, and the president's extraor-
dinary politicization of foreign policy
and the politics of fear do nothing to
secure the American people or our
Photo: Shealah Craighead/White House
U.S. President George Bush, left, stands with Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset,
and Shimon Peres, Israel's president, at the Israeli parliament on May 15.
stalwart ally Israel."
A White House spokeswoman
denied that Obama was the target.
"There are many who have sug-
gested these types of negotiations with
people that President Bush thinks we
should not talk to," Dana Perino said.
"I understand when you're running
for office you sometimes think the
world revolves around you. That is
not always true, and it is not true in
this case."
MSNBC, however, quoted a senior
administration official as saying that
the remarks apply to Obama as well
as to former President Jimmy Carter,
who recently met with Hamas offi-
cials in Syria. Obama criticized Cart-
er for that meeting.
The national director of the An-
ti-Defamation League, Abraham
Foxman, who was at the Knesset,
said that if anything the president
was referring to Carter — but that
more likely he was simply enunciat-
ing what long has been known as the
Bush Doctrine.
"This has been Gorge Bush, this
has been his policy: You don't talk to
terrorists," Foxman told JTA. "To say
(that) to negotiate with Hamas and
Hezbollah and al-Qaida is appease-
ment is not a political statement. It
was a very special moment."
That Obama's response came
within hours of Bush's speech was
typical of the swiftness of his cam-
paign's earlier refutations of false ac-
cusations that Obama is a Muslim or
that he has cultivated anti-Israel for-
eign policy advisers.
In talks with Jewish groups,
Obama has said he learned from the
attacks on Kerry, the Massachusetts
senator who during his presidential
bid took weeks to answer false allega-
tions that he had faked his Vietnam
War record.
Those attacks gave the political
lexicon a new term, "swift-boating,"
referring to the military river vessel
manned by Kerry and others during
the war.
Democrats say they have reason to
fear such tactics. Proxies for McCain
have told the JTA they hope to siphon
Jewish votes from Obama, should he
become the Democratic nominee, in
critical swing states such as New Jer-
sey, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
One signal of the Democrats' de-
termination to head off such allega-
tions was their use of Kerry himself as
a rebutter in remarks on the popular
liberal Web site talkingpointsmemo,
com.
"It's absolutely shameless that
an American president would use a
speech in front of a foreign govern-
ment to launch such a petty political
attack," Kerry wrote last Thursday.
The Republican Jewish Coalition
said Obama was suspiciously defen-
sive.
"Why, when Barack Obama hears
the word 'appeasement,' does he
think it applies to him?" it asked in
a statement ,
Bush often has used "some peo-
ple" locutions as a rhetorical device,
not specifying exactly whom he is
singling out for criticism. Media
critics at the Associated Press and
the Washington Post, among other
publications, have expressed frustra-
tion with this tactic, saying it gives
Bush unfair deniability when a target
— like Obama — calls the attack a
smear.
The Democratic National Com-
mittee called on McCain to repudiate
Bush's comments.
"Bush's outrageous comments
are an embarrassment to our coun-
try, not based on fact and bring us no
closer to our goal of ending terrorist
attacks against Israel and bringing
peace to the region," DNC chairman
Howard Dean said.
McCain responded, "Yes, there
have been appeasers in the past, and
the president is exactly right, and one
of them is Neville Chamberlain," he
told reporters in Columbus, Ohio. "I
believe that it's not an accident that
our hostages came home from Iran
when President Reagan was presi-
dent of the United States. He didn't
sit down in a negotiation with the
religious extremists in Iran, he made
it very clear that those hostages were
coming home."
In fact, the 1981 release was ar-
ranged under Carter's watch, and the
Iranians said at the time that they
timed it to humiliate the outgoing
president because of his confronta-
tional posture during the hostage
crisis.
Democrats virtually piled on in
slamming Bush's remarks.
"We don't criticize the president
when he is on foreign soil," said U.S.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the
speaker of the House of Representa-
tives who is about to lead a bipartisan
congressional delegation to Israel.
"One would think that that would
apply to the president, that he would
not criticize Americans when he is on
foreign soil. I think what the presi-
dent did in that regard is beneath the
dignity of the office of president and
unworthy of our representation at
that observance in Israel."
The National Jewish Democratic
Council cast Bush's comments as in-
sulting to Israel.
"It was a real honor that Bush
was invited to address the Knesset
on Israel's 60th anniversary," it said
in a statement. "Unfortunately, Bush
took advantage of this opportunity
to use the power and prestige of the
presidency to launch a shameless po-
litical attack on foreign soil."
J Street, a newly formed dovish
pro-Israel lobby, echoed that theme.
In an e-mail blast it called on follow-
ers to write Bush and say "Shame on
you!"
Matt Dorf, a consultant to the
Democratic Party who represents its
views in the Jewish community, said
Bush was not in a position to launch
bromides.
"On President Bush's watch, ter-
rorists almost daily launch missiles
into Israel, Hamas terrorists rule
Gaza, Syria built a nuclear reactor,
Iran is even closer to building a nu-
clear bomb, Hezbollah terrorists are
threatening our allies Israel and Leb-
anon, and Iraq is a breeding ground
for terrorists," Dorf told JTA.
"President Bush has a lot of nerve
making false accusations against
Democrats while his policies have
left Israel less safe than it was when
he became president."
The text of President Bush's address to the Knesset
can be found atwww.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2008/05/20080515-1 .html.
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 21, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 22, 2008, newspaper, May 22, 2008; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188190/m1/4/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .