During a whirlwind 30-hour tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories this week, Sen. Barack Obama made sure to visit rocket-scarred Sderot.
The southern Israel town is a mandatory part of an itinerary for touring dignitaries — a symbolic pit stop for anyone wishing to express support for the Jewish state, and witness the damage caused by Palestinian terrorism. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine preceded Obama’s visit by one day; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stopped by Sderot last month; and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain appeared there in March.
But all eyes were on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee July 23 as he used his Sderot cameo to back Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket sallies from the Gaza Strip.
“I don’t think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on its citizens,” Obama said at the police station in Sderot. “If someone was sending rockets on my house, where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I encourage Israel to do same.”
The Illinois senator’s trip came as his presidential campaign has stepped up its outreach efforts to Jewish voters, and as it tries to shore up his image with the general public as a potential commander in chief.
Over the past few weeks the Obama campaign has established Jewish outreach committees in various U.S. cities, many with the help of Jewish lawmakers who either backed Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) for president or stayed neutral in the Democratic primary campaign.
This week’s trip also presented Palestinian officials and several Israeli politicians who aspire to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister with an opportunity to forge a relationship with a possible future U.S. president.
In addition to discussing security issues in his meetings with Israeli leaders, Obama also talked about negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. On July 22 in Jordan, Obama said that as president he would begin working on an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal from his first day in office.
“There’s a tendency for each side to focus on the faults of the other rather than look in the mirror,” Obama told reporters in Amman. “The Israeli government is unsettled, the Palestinians are divided between Fatah and Hamas, and so it’s difficult for either side to make the bold move that would bring about peace.
“My goal is to make sure that we work, starting from the minute I’m sworn into office, to try to find some breakthroughs,” he said.
In Jerusalem the next day, Obama met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, President Shimon Peres and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama also visited Yad Vashem, where he donned a white kippah and penned an entry in the visitors’ book.
“At a time of great peril and torment, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man’s potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world,” Obama wrote.
The Democratic candidate then went to Ramallah to meet with Palestinain Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian officials said Abbas briefed Obama on progress in the peace process. Obama met later in the day with Olmert.
Israeli sources said Obama’s discussions with Barak turned to the recent launch of Turkish-mediated negotiations between Israel and Syria.
Obama, according to one source, described the efforts to achieve peace as important, but said that as president “he would never put pressure on Israel to take steps that could put its security at risk.”
As for Iran, Obama described its nuclear program as “the most important challenge facing the international community right now,” Israeli sources said.
Obama drew criticism from the Republican Jewish Coalition and some conservative bloggers over some of the comments he made in Jordan.
Terrorism, Obama said, is “counterproductive, as well as being immoral, because it makes, I believe, the Israelis want to dig in and simply think about their own security regardless of what’s going on beyond their borders.”
Obama immediately added that “the same would be true of any people when these kinds of things happen and innocent people are injured.”
“On the other hand, I think that the Palestinians have to feel some sense of progress in terms of their economic situation, you know, whether it’s on the West Bank or Gaza, if people continually feel pressed, where they can’t get to their job or they can’t make a living, they get frustrated,” Obama said. “It’s hard for them if they see no glimmer of hope to then want to take a leap in order to make impressions.”
In response to the comments, the RJC issued a statement criticizing Obama for what the organization described as “asking Israelis and the American Jewish community to put terrorism in context.”
Ira Forman, the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, responded with his own criticism of the RJC.
“I can only imagine that the head of the RJC put on one of those hats with horns on it that shamans might wear,” Forman said. “Then they must have proceeded to whip themselves into a fury dancing around a fire pit stoked with acacia wood. Then by pouring the blood of a red newt over the Obama statement and reading the statement by the light of the acacia fire, they could somehow divine an anti-Israel message out of what appears, to everybody else, to be a pro-Israel statement.”
As for McCain, he gave an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 two days before Obama’s arrival. The Arizona senator used the opportunity to rap his opponent’s inexperience in Middle East affairs and showcase his own longstanding devotion to the Jewish state.
“I have been to Israel many, many, many times. My first visit was with Sen. Scoop Jackson years ago. I have visited the area,” McCain said. “I know the Middle East. I know the issues and the challenges, and I know that these are very difficult times for the State of Israel.”
JTA and the Associated Press contributed to this report.