World
PRESIDENTIAL PROFILE
Closing The Deal
Obama labors to gain Jewish trust of his friends and his policies.
Ron Kampeas
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Youngstown, Ohio
A
Sen. Obama: "So when I became more
politically conscious, my starting point
when I think about the Middle East is
this enormous emotional attachment
and sympathy for Israel."
major Republican tack against
Barack Obama has a simple
theme: By his friends you shall
know him.
For the McCain campaign, in recent
weeks this has meant repeatedly linking
the Democratic presidential nominee to
William Ayers, the former member of
the Weather Underground. But Jewish
Republicans had been employing the
strategy for many months in the run-up to
the Nov. 4 vote, with the goal of portraying
Obama as soft and unreliable in his sup-
port for Israel.
Jewish GOPers point to Obama's 20-
year membership in the church of Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, his associations — how-
ever limited — with Palestinian activists
and his consultations with some foreign
policy experts seen as critical of either
Israel or the pro-Israel lobby.
To buttress this line of attack, they
stress Obama's stated willingness to meet
with Iranian leaders. Hovering in the
background — and at times right up in
the voters' faces — have been Internet
campaigns and outright pronouncements
by some conservative pundits depicting
Obama as an Arab or a practicing Muslim.
Obama has responded by explaining
how he has dropped troubling relation-
ships, touting his ties to some Jewish
communal leaders in Chicago and pro-
Israel lights, casting himself as a lifelong
supporter of Israel and presenting himself
as a leader who would work to revitalize
black-Jewish relations.
He has insisted repeatedly that Israel's
security is "sacrosanct," cited his defense
of Israel's military tactics during the 2006
war in Lebanon and pressed for tighter
U.S. sanctions against Iran as part of his
pledge to do everything in his power to
block Iran's acquisition of nuclear weap-
ons.
The U.S. senator from Illinois has spo-
ken thoughtfully about Jewish holidays
and religious traditions as well as the early
influence of Jewish and Zionist writers
on his worldview. And last Martin Luther
King Day, Obama used the pulpit of the
slain civil rights leader to condemn anti-
Semitism in the black community
"I always joke that my intellectual for-
mation was through Jewish scholars and
writers, even though I didn't know it at
the time;' Obama told the Atlantic's Jeffrey
Goldberg earlier this year, noting "theolo-
gians or Philip Roth who helped shape my
sensibility, or some of the more popular
writers like Leon Uris:'
"So when I became more politically
conscious, my starting point when I think
about the Middle East is this enormous
emotional attachment and sympathy for
Israel, mindful of its history, mindful of
the hardship and pain and suffering that
Mending Fences
War hero McCain found friendship with anti-war Jew.
Ami Eden
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York
W
Sen. McCain: "Allowing a potential terror-
ist sanctuary would profoundly affect the
security of the United States, Israel and
our other friends and would invite further
intervention from Iraq's neighbors, includ-
ing a very much emboldened Iran."
A26
October 30 • 2008
fisi
hen John McCain stopped
in New York one Tuesday in
October to make his pre-
primaries pitch to a room full of Jewish
bigwigs, he spent virtually all his time
discussing foreign policy — but only after
an emotional introduction from James
Tisch that focused less on policy than the
character of the presidential candidate
standing before them.
Tisch, a scion of a family real estate
empire, proud Republican and decorated
Jewish communal leader, invoked the
memory of the late Washington power
lawyer David Ifshin and his unlikely
friendship with McCain.
Back when McCain was a prisoner of
war being held and tortured by the North
Vietnamese, Ifshin — then a hard-core
anti-war protester — visited Hanoi to speak
out against U.S. involvement in the war. His
remarks were piped into McCain's cell.
A few years later, the story goes, Ifshin
found himself living on a kibbutz in
Israel when the Yom Kippur War erupted.
Watching U.S. aircraft arrive with supplies
to aid the beleagured country triggered a
transformation in Ifshin that would culmi-
nate with his becoming a lawyer for AIPAC
and then the Clinton administration.
Along the way, after McCain had entered
the U.S. Congress, Ifshin sought out the
Republican lawmaker and asked his for-
giveness. The two became friends and
worked together on human rights causes.
"It was;' Tisch told the 50 people assem-
bled, "an inspiration for many of us."
And, one could reasonably add, a
powerful example of why — before the
twists and turns of an increasingly bitter
presidential race — McCain commanded
respect in Democratic and liberal circles.
To be sure, the veteran Arizona senator
has always been a staunch conservative
on a range of economic, social and foreign
policy issues. But when it comes to grand
themes — his emphasis on personal
redemption, reconciliation, bipartisanship,
sacrifice — McCain's message has reso-
nated across party lines.
Like JFK?
It is true that in the heat of the race,
McCain's "Country First" campaign slogan
can sound to the Democratic ear like a
swipe at the patriotism of the opposing
ticket. But when voicing the fuller version
— when grounding his commitment to
country in his realization in a Vietnam
prison camp that the greatest fulfillment
in life is serving a cause greater than one's
self — McCain could be mistaken for John
E Kennedy urging a new generation to
embrace the notion of putting service to
country first.
Just as important in understanding
McCain's initial appeal among Democrats,