(JTA) President Bush used a dinner Wednesday for close to 100 American Jewish leaders, marking the opening of a new Anne Frank exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, to repair the damage from comments he made a day earlier, in which he blasted Israel's attempt to eliminate a Hamas leader. The comments outraged many Jewish groups, which said Bush was abandoning the principles of his war on terror and his landmark speech of last June 24. Both in his formal remarks and in private conversations with Jewish leaders, Bush emphasized repeatedly that he still believed in the framework of his June 24 speech and that he saw Israel's security as his top priority in the Middle East. Amid a new Israeli airstrike in Gaza, which killed civilians in addition to two Hamas members, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Thursday, the real issue was not Israel or the Palestinian Authority, but the continued violence of Hamas, and he called Hamas "an enemy to peace."
2003-06-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive