Finally, Presidential Empathy

(Jerusalem Post) David Horovitz - In his first Israeli TV interview since he won the presidency, Obama ticked all the right boxes - stressing his "sympathy and identity" with the Jewish experience; disarmingly acknowledging that his middle name "Hussein" might prompt suspicion, then offsetting that by naming his senior Jewish advisers; and noting that thwarting Iran's nuclear drive had been his "No. 1 foreign policy priority." Perhaps most importantly, the president, when urging a more flexible attitude to peacemaking from the Israeli public, did so with a commendable effort at empathy: "The Israeli people are going to have to overcome legitimate skepticism, more than legitimate fears, in order to get a change that I think will secure Israel for another 60 years."


2010-07-09 09:06:17

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