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Obama talks about Israel’s right to defend itself

[additional-authors]
December 29, 2008

Thus far, President-elect Barack Obama, whose peace plan just had a huge monkey wrench thrown its way, has deferred to President Bush on Israel’s airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. During his campaign for presidency, Obama made numerous appeals to his strong support for Israel; CBS News, in a seven-minute video after the jump and in this post, recalls Obama’s statements.

If Israel’s assault on Hamas militants really is about the years of daily rocket attacks aimed across the border at Israeli civilians—and I have no reason to believe otherwise—this comment made by Obama during a July visit to Sderot is revealing:

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israelis to do the same thing,” Obama said.

The folks at StandWithUs drew that to my attention. The quote appeared in Haaretz, hardly a bastion of right-wing Israeli thought.

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