Jewish leaders expected President Barack Obama to sell them hard on the Iran nuclear deal. Instead, participants in two White House meetings on April 13 said he offered a softer pitch on how deeply he cares for Israel and the Jewish people.
“He tried to explain he understands Jewish trauma, history, the Jewish feeling of being alone in a bad neighborhood,” said a participant in the first meeting, which was attended by 15 top officials from Jewish organizations.
“There was an openheartedness, there were some deep reflections by the president,” another participant said.
Sources said the second meeting, for Jewish fundraisers for the Democratic Party, had a similar cast. One participant later reported the president said he would “consider it a moral failure if something happened to Israel on my watch,” and that he feels “like I’m a member of the tribe.”
Both meetings were off the record, and those interviewed declined to be named, citing White House rules.
Obama’s tone — at times anguished, according to participants — signals his concerns about how his presidency, heading into lame duck territory, is perceived in terms of his relationship to Israel and to Jews.
He raised these concerns in an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman posted April 5 on the newspaper’s website.
“It has been personally difficult for me to hear the sort of expressions that somehow we don’t have, this administration has not done everything it could to look out for Israel’s interest,” Obama told Friedman.
The worries come in the wake of a crisis in U.S.-Israel relations, focused mostly on disagreements over the Iran nuclear talks, but also fueled by lingering resentments over the collapse last year of the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the difficulties that Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have in communicating with one another.
Jewish voter approval of Obama is at 54 percent, Gallup reported last week, just eight points above the national average of 46 percent. Jewish approval of Obama has routinely run 10 to 15 points higher than the national average throughout his presidency.
Earlier this month, the major powers and Iran announced the outline of a deal that would exchange sanctions relief for restrictions aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Congress was considering legislation that would require its review of any deal, and Obama had said he would veto it.
Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry held a meeting with Jewish leaders from the same organizations attending the White House meeting, asking them not to lobby in favor of the legislation.
However, on April 14 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 19-0 to approve a revised bill that addresses points the White House found objectionable, including linking sanctions relief to Iranian actions on terrorism. Obama told the second meeting with Jewish leaders that his concerns about the bill were allayed and he would not block the measure.
At the first meeting, participants challenged Obama on the particulars of the Iran deal, including concerns that the sanctions relief went further than merited by the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity.
The meeting with the fundraisers was more of a strategy session on how Obama could improve his messaging to Jewish Americans, Israelis and the wider American community. Advice included being more communicative with Congress, which has regarded the White House as insulated, and engaging directly with the Israeli public, which is still reeling over the bitter exchanges before Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March. The March 3 address was arranged without consulting the White House.
Organizations represented at the first meeting included the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, J Street, the National Council of Jewish Women, B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish Federations of North America, the National Jewish Democratic Council, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Israel Policy Forum, as well as representatives from the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams.
The second meeting, with 14 invitees, included major Democratic donors and fundraisers, including Haim Saban, the Israeli American entertainment mogul who has been critical of Obama’s Middle East policies, and those associated with AIPAC, including past presidents Amy Friedkin of San Francisco and Howard Friedman, and with J Street, including Alexandra Stanton, Lou Susman and Victor Kovner.