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Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 2, 2007 |
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View the transcript of the address, delivered after this article was posted.
Senator Barack Obama's positions on Israel and the Mideast are expected to be explained Friday when the Democratic candidate for U.S. President addresses American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists in Chicago. He apparently aims to clarify his positions, after questions have been raised about the degree of his support for Israel.
45-year-old Obama is surging in the polls and is considered a serious candidate despite his age and inexperience. There are reports that his previous more "progressive" (pro-Palestinian) views have been modified in response to the need to curry favor with liberal Jewish donors in the Democratic Party. Obama and other candidates will also be present at the annual AIPAC conference in Washington later in mid-March, hosting a reception there.
Since being voted into the Senate, Obama has backed the Palestinian anti-terrorism bill, defended Israel during last summer's war and supported the foreign aid bill. Dan Shapiro, Obama's Middle East advisor, told YnetNews that his speech in Chicago will answer everyone's questions. "They will find out," explained Shapiro, "that his views are mainstream on the security dilemmas and how to solve them. Like everybody he is a supporter of the Two State Solution but he realizes that if you don't have a legitimate Palestinian partner who can meet the conditions of the Quartet and deliver on the agreements, you are not going to get there."
His stance on the Iranian nuclear issue has been firm, implying that war is an option to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While he has expressed willingness to engage Iran in discussions about Iraq, he has said he is unwilling to compromise over nuclear weapons, supporting heavy sanctions "even if the Russians and Chinese do not comply."
When Obama visited Israel in January 2006 as part of a delegation of senators to the region, he met with Palestinian students, reportedly telling them: "you have legitimate aspirations but you will not gain anything through violence."
He made the usual stops, at Yad Vashem and Jerusalem's Old City, expressing optimism for the prospects for peace: "As you travel through the Middle East what keeps on striking home to me is how similar everyone is, and yet the degree to which we can find differences to fight wars over. It requires a great deal of empathy, I think, between various sides to overcome this history and live in peace," the senator said.
Yet in his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama ponders "the possible futility" of believing that a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be reached "in our time." But he dismisses pessimism as the "thoughts of an old man" and affirms an obligation to seek peace for the benefit of the region's people and for American interests.
Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times, provides some insider background on the Obama's speech today in the Windy City. She said his speech started taking shape with input from Mark Lippert, Obama's Senate foreign policy adviser, and Shapiro.
Obama, in his speech, is likely to clarify his views on regional engagement. Last November, in his Iraq address, Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an "opening dialogue" with Iran and Syria. "Make no mistake," Obama warned then: "if the Iranians and Syrians think they can use Iraq as another Afghanistan or a staging area from which to attack Israel or other countries, they are badly mistaken."
Sweet reports that "Obama's camp is well-aware that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz -- in a recurring feature ranking the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates or people who may run on how good they are for Israel -- puts him last on its list." (Former GOP New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is tops.) But the low ranking may just be a function of relative unfamiliarity.
Sweet related an anecdote about a campaign stop "Last August, [when] Obama was in Cape Town, South Africa, at a time when Israel was being criticized for overreacting for its military attacks in Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Obama was speaking to a group at a cultural institution called The Center for the Book, which provided a friendly venue for the Illinois Democratic. The crowd, clearly hostile to Israel, expected Obama to bash Israel on Lebanon. He did not. They were surprised. They just did not know Obama well enough to realize who they were dealing with."
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