Obama Faces New Israel-Related Criticism

By RON KAMPEAS, JTA
Thursday, 21 February 2008

WASHINGTON - Even as U.S. Sen. Barack Obama solidifies his status as the Democratic front-runner with victories Tuesday in Wisconsin and Hawaii, he is facing a new line of attack from some Jewish circles regarding his advisers on foreign policy.

In recent weeks, writers associated with several right-wing media outlets have taken aim at what they describe as anti-Israel voices advising Obama on Middle East issues, spurring a rash of mass e-mails voicing similar concerns.

Among those cited by critics are Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration; Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University; Robert Malley, an adviser on Israeli-Arab affairs during the Clinton administration; and George Soros, an international financier who has funded pro-democracy efforts throughout Europe and in recent years became a major supporter of the Democratic Party in the United States.

Fairly or unfairly, each has been on the receiving end of criticism from some pro-Israel activists or Jewish groups over positions viewed as being hostile to the Jewish state.

The Obama campaign acknowledges that it has received advice from the people named in the negative e-mail campaign, describing the meetings with these individuals as a product of Obama's "one America" philosophy of reaching out to all Americans.

But, in the end, campaign officials say, the candidate should be assessed according to his own votes and statements. Besides, they add, the personalities in question do not play any formal role in advising Obama on Middle East issues. That task, they say, falls to a collection of policy experts in good standing with the pro-Israel lobby.

Unlike the Internet attacks falsely painting Obama as a secret radical Muslim, the "adviser" e-mails appear to have struck a chord among some Jewish organizational leaders, in addition to worrying some grassroots voters.

This week, in an interview with Shalom TV, a Web-based Jewish channel, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said that "if you have an adviser that is not sympathetic to Israel -- not sympathetic to some Jewish concerns -- you have a potential problem."

"If you only have one or two close advisers and they're both anti-Israel," Lauder said, then "it's only a matter of time before the president becomes anti-Israel."

Lauder made no specific reference to Obama, but the comments come at a time when the Illinois senator appears to be the only candidate facing major questions about his advisers on Israel-related issues.

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Much, if not the vast majority, of the material targeting Obama's advisers is distorted and even false.

The campaign notes that its Middle East policy is strictly the province of four individuals, each of them perceived as pro-Israel and three of them Jewish: Dan Shapiro, a longtime activist and bridge between the Jewish organizational leadership and Democratic Party; Anthony Lake, a Clinton administration national security adviser; Eric Lynn, the Obama campaign's Jewish liaison who has lived in Israel; and Dennis McDonough, once the foreign policy adviser to former U.S. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who had impeccable pro-Israel credentials during his time in office.

Of the four regular advisers, only Lake has taken shots from Obama's critics. In an article in the American Thinker -- the online conservative magazine that has been the principle redoubt of Obama-Israel skepticism -- Ed Lasky faults Lake, who recently converted to Judaism, for having worked for the Carter administration and for living in the Berkshires.

Much of the material appearing in a number of Lasky articles and circulating in e-mails is similarly flimsy, especially his attacks on Malley, according to Obama supporters and some former U.S. diplomats. Like Ross, Malley was a senior adviser to the Clinton administration at the U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000.

Malley has differed with Ross and others over the degree of blame to be assigned over the talks' breakdown -- Ross singles out the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat -- but he does not solely blame Israel. And in public talks in Washington, he emphasizes Israel's security as a critical element in formulating policy.

"He is not anti-Israeli, he is not a fanatic anti-Israeli," Ross told JTA. "To use these tacks is just wrong."

The targeting of Malley led Ross and four other Clinton-era officials to publish an open letter last week defending his record.

"Whatever differences do exist, there is no disagreement among us on one core issue that transcends partisan or other divides: that the U.S. should not and will not do anything to undermine Israel’s safety or the special relationship between our two nations," the letter said. "We have worked with Rob closely over the years and have no doubt he shares this view and has acted consistent with it."

Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, has donated to Obama's campaign. He has also been critical of Israel and of pro-Israel orthodoxies, but the Holocaust survivor has cast his criticisms as mindful of Israel's security.

Recently, he considered funding an alternative pro-Israel lobby, one that would more aggressively advocate for a two-state solution, while also maintaining Israel's security needs. Lasky links to a Soros article last year in the New York Review of Books to show that the financier is a "fierce foe" of Israel. In it, Soros describes his thesis as follows: "Military superiority is necessary for Israel's national security, but it is not sufficient."