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Obama: I'm committed to Israel's security
Philadelphia Daily News
Chicago Tribune
Jul 24, 2008
SDEROT, Israel - Democratic presidential candidate Ba-rack Obama yesterday employed powerful imagery from past and present to declare his commitment to Israeli security, even as a visit to Palestinian officials in the West Bank aimed to signal balance in his approach to managing the Middle East's volatile conflicts. Obama laid a traditional ceremonial wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum and later went to the town of Sderot to stand before stacks of rusted, twisted rockets fired into Israel by militant Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.
"I'm here to say as an American and as a friend of Israel that we stand with the people of Sderot," Obama said at a news conference outside a police station that had been attacked earlier this month. "America must always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself."
His GOP rival, John McCain, visited Sderot, a few miles from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip and the target of repeated rocket and mortar attacks, in March. Unlike McCain, he crossed the border into the West Bank to meet with officials of the Palestinian Authority.
His campaign issued only a vaguely worded statement saying that while there he had "reiterated his support for ongoing peace talks."
He also pledged his determination to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
A nuclear-armed Iran is widely feared here as a grave threat to Israel, given that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he wants to see Israel destroyed. *
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