Romney Takes Tough Stance in Israel

Posted By P. David Hornik On July 30, 2012 @ 12:32 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 12 Comments

On Sunday Mitt Romney took the fight for the American Jewish (and Evangelical) vote to Israel, a country most American Jews have never visited. His target—a large and convenient one—was Barack Obama’s record of behavior toward the Jewish state.

Even so, there’s no possibility that Romney will get most of the Jewish vote in November, something no Republican presidential candidate has ever done. But a Gallup poll released Friday has American Jewish support for Obama slipping from 78% in 2008 to 68% at present, and Romney—along with his concerns about shoring up his stature with the Evangelicals—hopes to woo enough Jewish voters, particularly in swing states like Florida and Ohio, to make a difference in November.

Even before arriving, Romney told Israeli media that as president he would treat Israel publicly much better than Obama has. As he said to the daily Israel Hayom:

I would treat Israel like the friend and ally it is…. And if there were places where we disagree, I would hold these disagreements in private conversations, not in public forums. I cannot imagine going to the United Nations, as Obama did, and criticizing Israel in front of the world. I believe that he should have mentioned instead the thousands of rockets that are being fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

And it was not just a matter, he went on to say, of propriety, but also of policy, and of respecting Israel’s autonomy as a country:

The president has also spoken of returning to 1967 borders—they are indefensible. And acting as a negotiator and usurping the primary role played by Israel in negotiating for its own future is not the right course for America to take.

Asked about Iran, Romney replied that he was

commit[ted] to take whatever action is necessary to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear. A nuclear Iran is a threat to America and to the world….
Iran is closer to nuclearization than it was when President Obama took office. It is hard to feel that the events of the last three and a half years have strengthened America’s posture and promoted the prospects of peace.

On that score Romney was well received in Israel on Sunday by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with whom he has a personal friendship going back to the 1970s when they both worked for the Boston Consulting Group. “I heard some of your remarks,” Netanyahu told the candidate,

and you said that the greatest danger facing the world is the ayatollah regime possessing nuclear weapons capability. Mitt, I couldn’t agree with you more, and I think it is important to do everything in our power to prevent the ayatollahs from possessing that capability. We have to be honest and say that all the diplomacy and sanctions…so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota.

No mention of Obama by name there, but again, it hardly constitutes praise for his policy.

A senior adviser to Romney, Dan Senor (coauthor of the popular book about Israel Start-up Nation), also made a media wave when he said that if Israel had to “take action on its own” to stop Iran from going nuclear, Romney would “respect that decision.” If so—and it remains to be seen—it would contrast with the Obama administration’s relentless pressure on Israel not to take action, amid reassurances about talks with Iran that are plainly a sham and sanctions on Iran that are plainly ineffectual.

After meeting with Netanyahu, Romney met with President Shimon Peres and opposition leader Shaul Mofaz. In a speech in Jerusalem in the evening, Romney again implicitly criticized Obama for picking fights with Israel, stating: “Diplomatic distance that is public and critical emboldens Israel’s adversaries.” And he also said it was “a moving experience to be in Jerusalem” and that Jerusalem is “Israel’s capital”—clearly a stark and intended contrast with White House spokesman Jay Carney’s refusal last Thursday to grant that status to the focal point of Jewish life for three thousand years.

Obama, for his part, seems concerned.

On Friday, with conspicuous timing, he signed a bill—broadly supported by both Democrats and Republicans—allocating an additional $70 million to Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. In doing so, Obama spoke of “the outstanding cooperation that we have seen…at an unprecedented level between our two countries to underscore our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security” and of “how committed all of us are, Republicans and Democrats, as Americans, to our friends and making sure that Israel is safe and secure.”

The problem with such airy, de rigueur bromides is that they won’t hold up to scrutiny. Not when Obama’s policy on Iran is a manifest failure as the Islamic Republic strides forward unimpeded toward the bomb; not when Obama’s own spokesman cannot identify Israel’s capital; not when a series of administration figures keep branding the presence of hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the West Bank as “illegitimate”; not when the administration coddles and promotes a dangerous anti-Israeli figure like Egypt’s new president Morsi, who has called Israeli leaders “vampires” and “killers” and represents a movement aiming to destroy the Jewish state and subjugate the West.

The more Mitt Romney can bring home such truths to Jewish and other American voters, the better.

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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

But it seems we dont have to imagine Willard going to other countries and criticizing our president in front of the world...

What a hypocrite !!!

________________________________________________________

It is one thing to hate Willard, I understand that. I don’t hate him I just like others much better.

In this case I think Willard took the words right from my own mouth. He didn’t mention Big O by name all he did was say that we shouldn’t do something, and that he would do it this way. I’m ok with that.

I’m really OK with a whole lot of what Romney says, it is what he will do that I am concerned with. If there was a way to hold his words in front of him during his presidency and force him to do what he said he would do it would be a good thing.

I’ve been voting for half a century, I certainly won’t miss this one and because of the choices we have I will vote straight Republican.

I am not alone in my frustration with our government. I do believe that the press and pollsters are way off base in their reporting and don’t have a clue about the frustration of the country. The cities are lost, there are a lot of people in our American cities and the majority, hopefully a slim majority are liberals. The countryside and suburbs however are a different story. I believe, more than any time in the history of the country that people are fed up. With Obama they wanted change and they got it but that wasn’t the change they were voting for.

Mr. Romney does not well represent me because compared to me he is a moderate. He is not quite a moderate in reality, I hope. I hope and think he has moved to the right significantly in the last decade. Because he is closer to the center than me that makes him closer to what the majority of Americans want. The majority of Americans are too ill informed to make a good decision so they I think will like the more moderate Romney than the Progressive, Leftist, Communist/Socialist/Fascist, Obama.

I am thinking now that the Senate is in play. Not only do I believe it is in play, I think unless something drastic happens it won’t even be close.

I think that there is a good chance that Mitch will be the majority leader in the Senate, I sure hope he grows a set of gonads between now and then.

The problem with all this is that it may be too late to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it may be too late to stop the inflation bomb that Big O dropped on us and it may be too late to stop the damage from the thirty million illegal immigrants that have invaded our country with the Democrat party blessing.

If Mr. Romney does the one thing he says he will do, namely, require citizenship to work, it will do more to turn around unemployment than any other thing he could do except for lowering business taxes.

If he does those two things, and he has said he would, it will turn our country around on a dime, we may be able to stop the demise that Obama and “his people” have worked so hard to cause. On top of that if he opens up federal lands to oil and gas and ok’s the pipeland, gets the north slope opened up we could have gas below $2.00. Cheap energy will go a long way to freeing up money for other purchases and help to keep money in this country that would go normally to others.

Yes we could have done much better than Mr. Willard “Mitt Romney, but we can’t do worse than Barak Hussein Obama.

Thank you...

About the pipeline I think I remember him saying he would OK it...

Thats something he should be able to do the first week...

1,000s of real jobs that will last a while will be available both skilled and unskilled...

There is no reason why we cant have $2 gas...the economic advantages are numerous..

Would Willard close the border ??? I dont know...although in 2008 he had ads with photos of himself posing in front of Congressman Duncan Hunters fence, he was also for the AMNESTY Bill and now wants the DREAM Act for illegal aliens who go to college or join the military...

Controlling the influx of illegal aliens would go a long way to freeing up jobs for Americans...Would Willard consider American workers BEFORE the illegal aliens ???

He wants to speak about the economy but he hasnt as yet talked about the drain on our coffers from the millions of illegal aliens and able bodied Americans who are given free housing, health care, education, food stamps and those EBT cards to spend as they will on luxuries the American taxpayers cant afford...theres little control on what can be bought...

When my American daughter was in college, working with 2 children she applied for a HUD loan to buy a house...she was turned down because she had TOO LOW an income Say WHAT ???

At about the same time I read in the newspaper that in another TN county about 50 miles from here illegal aliens were getting that same HUD loan BECAUSE THEY WERE LOW INCOME...

Granted this was before Obamas time but he has improved on the freebies and ease for the illegal aliens while causing further hardship for Americans...

Will Willard continue the trend that Obama has set ???

Does he have the guts to put a stop to the craziness ???

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