Barack Obama receives an "I (heart) Sderot" T-shirt from Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal during his visit to the southern Israeli town that has been a frequent target of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in the nearby Gaza Strip.
The Question came at Barack Obama almost from the moment he touched down in Israel.
"Can you ensure that there will be no second Holocaust," an Israeli reporter shouted at Obama this morning as he headed in to tour Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial.
What are you going to do to "avoid a second Holocaust?" the journalist asked again after Obama was done with his tour.
Israelis may be interested in peace with the Palestinians. But Iran is the issue that concerns them.
The "second Holocaust" question was prompted by John McCain's recent declaration that "the United States of America can never allow a second Holocaust."
So Israelis want to know what Obama would do, if he would do everything to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. What they want to know, of course, is if he is willing to OK a military strike on Iran - if it comes to that.
They want to know if the man who says he thinks the US should first use diplomacy instead of military might to solve world problems, really means it when he says that he will "take no options off the table."
Israeli leader after leader raised the issue with Obama, who made it clear in meeting after meeting that all options were on the table.
“He said a nuclear Iran is not acceptable," said Zalman Shoval, the former Israeli ambassador to the US and current Likud Party official who joined Likud Party leader Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, when he met today with Obama. "Not acceptable to him and not acceptable to the US. And he even went beyond that in explaining the implications of a nuclear Iran with regard, not just to Israel, but to the Arab and Muslim world and the negative influence this might have on the relative influence of Iran within the Arab world.”
“I know there was a consensus between Bibi and him that Iran going nuclear has to be prevented, without going today into the means or steps which need to be taken, but nothing is off the table,” Shoval said.
Obama waited to the end of his day to address the question in public.
When he did, after a tour of Sderot, Obama issued some of his toughest-language on Iran.
"A nuclear Iran is a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East, but around the world," Obama told reporters during his one-and-only news conference during his visit to Israel and the West Bank.
Peace with the Palestinians became something of an afterthought. Obama spent about an hour of the day with Palestinian leaders. The rest of his time was devoted to wooing Israeli leaders which, as Haaretz writer Aluf Benn, noted is about wooing Jewish voters back home.
"To the Israeli establishment, McCain seems like the natural choice," Benn wrote. "With his white hair, expression lines and combat experience, he embodies the Israeli concept of leadership - a kind of American version of Yitzhak Rabin or Ariel Sharon. If McCain continues Bush's policies, Israel will benefit from the term of another U.S. president who understands its needs.
"Obama represents an exciting option, albeit a more dangerous one: If he manages to rehabilitate America's international stature, reduce its dependence on oil and push through peace between Israel and the Arabs, Israel's strategic situation will improve dramatically. But on the way, he might have to pressure Israel. If he fails, Israel will have to pay the price without reaping any returns."
Since McCain is running against Obama, as a conservative I have to vote for Obama.
Things will get worse with McCain.
Things will get much worse with Obama. And that is why I am voting for Obama. For things will only get worse with McCain but they need to get much worse for us to survive as a nation.
Of course a statement like that needs an explanation. And I will do so in the form of an analogy. Do you know how to cook a frog? Well, if you put it in a pot of boiling water the frog will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of water that is warm and turn up the heat gradually up to boiling the frog will just sit there not even realizing it is being boiled alive.
Obama is the one who puts the frog into the hot water and McCain is the one who turns up the heat gradually. With Obama his extremism will cause a backlash so great that America will start electing good leaders to oppose him. It happened in 1980 and it happened in 1994. And it will happen again.
But McCain he will really be the death of the Republican Party. As I said above things will get worse with McCain and therefore he and the Republican Party will get the blame. And then America will elect a Democrat in 2012 for President. And if recent history has shown us anything it has shown that the Democratic Candidate has been getting increasingly extreme. So I can’t tell you who the Democrats will put up that year but I can tell you that person will be as extreme if not more extreme than Obama. So, how long are we putting off having an Obama-like President? Four Years?
And meanwhile McCain has shown that he wants to drive conservatives and conservatism away from the Republican Party. For those of us who believes that the only solution to our country’s problems, it is unacceptable that neither of the two major parties represents conservative values.
So, I am left with the ultimate act of “tough love”. Not to say there aren’t hard times ahead for there is but that is true with McCain as well. But at least with Obama there is hope that things will get better after him. With McCain all hope is lost.
Posted by: Steve | July 25, 2008 at 02:34 PM