Dear Friends,

The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Barack Obama, arrived on Tuesday for what was scheduled to be a thirty-six hour visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Obama came with a large entourage which included his Middle East advisers, Dennis Ross and Daniel Kurtzer.

In a statement at Ben-Gurion International Airport after arriving from Jordan, Obama condemned an attack a few hours earlier by a Palestinian tractor driver who ran amuck on a Jerusalem street smashing into a bus, overturning a car, and seriously injuring an Israeli, who lost his leg. The terrorist was shot dead by a civilian and a police officer. This was the second time in only a month that an Arab terrorist driving a large construction vehicle deliberately plowed into traffic in a busy Jerusalem street.

The attack occurred very close to the hotel where Obama and his retinue subsequently spent the night.

(By the way my friend, Moshe Feiglin, was an eye-witness. He described the situation as follows: “The first thing the terrorist did was to lower the shovel on a female pedestrian right near me. I jumped when there was a boom when the shovel hit the street. He missed by centimeters, thank G-d. In the first second I thought it was some kind of accident, confusion, but then he continued in a zigzag on King David Street, hitting cars, and turning over many vehicles.”)

The terror attack hopefully made Obama understand what it is like to live under the continued threat of terror and death from Arab terrorists, since he and his people planned to stay overnight at the Kind David Hotel just minutes away from the terror attack.

The following is an interesting article in the Herald Tribune of Wednesday July 23, 2008.

AMMAN: Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that there was "no doubt security has improved in Iraq," but that he would not hesitate to overrule American commanders and redirect forces to fight what he called "a perilous and urgent" battle against terrorism in Afghanistan.

"My job as a candidate for president and a potential commander in chief extends beyond Iraq," Obama told reporters in Jordan after finishing a three-day tour of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama, who is on a weeklong trip through the Middle East and Western Europe, lauded the efforts of the U.S. military to reduce violence in Iraq.

He conceded that top U.S. commanders had said they resisted the idea of a timetable for withdrawing troops, saying that they wanted to "retain as much flexibility as possible."

Asked whether he intended to ignore their advice, Obama declared: "No, I’m factoring in their advice, but placing it in this broader strategic framework that’s required."

With the old city of Amman in the background and the Temple of Hercules in the distance, Obama held a news conference with his delegation to Iraq, Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska; and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island.

All three senators, critical of the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq, renewed their support for a gradual withdrawal of troops from that country and a stronger focus on Afghanistan.

"My goal is to no longer have U.S. troops engaged in combat operations in Iraq," Obama said, declining to put a specific number of forces who should be left behind to perform counterterrorism operations and to train Iraqi troops.

The presidential campaign of Senator John McCain immediately criticized Obama for his remark about overruling commanders, saying that McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate, would always listen to commanders in war zones.

For nearly an hour in Amman, Obama took questions from U.S. and Jordanian journalists before heading to a private meeting with King Abdullah II and dining later with a delegation that included Queen Rania.

It was the first time during the highly publicized trip abroad that Obama held a news conference, and he responded to extensive questions about what he had learned after meeting with commanders and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama conceded that the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, opposed setting a timetable for withdrawing forces.

But if elected president, Obama said, he would have to factor in a wider degree of concerns, including providing a boost to the U.S. economy and expanding the fight in Afghanistan, whose situation he called "perilous and urgent."

"If I were in his shoes, I’d probably feel the same way," Obama said of Petraeus. "But my job as a candidate for president and a potential commander in chief extends beyond Iraq."

In Afghanistan, he noted, "you’ve got a deteriorating security situation, and all the commanders uniformly indicated that two to three brigades would be extraordinarily helpful in allowing them to accomplish their goals."

He added, "The only way we’re going to get those troops over there in a meaningful way is if we are taking them from someplace else. So that’s something that I have to factor in."

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain, criticized Obama for failing to listen to the guidance of U.S. military commanders in Iraq.

"By admitting that his plan for withdrawal places him at odds with General David Petraeus," Bounds said, "Barack Obama has made clear that his goal remains unconditional withdrawal rather than securing the victory our troops have earned."

At a meeting in Rochester, New Hampshire, McCain said that while he had often said that he would rather lose a campaign than a war, "It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."

Obama hesitated when asked in the news conference whether voters should give McCain credit for his judgment in supporting the buildup of U.S. troops (i.e. the “surge”) last year, which contributed to the reduction in violence in Iraq. Obama has mentioned other factors that contributed to the reduction, including U.S. understandings with Sunni leaders in Anbar Province.

[R.M.: Obama himself had been against the surge but refuses to admit this.]

"I will leave it to the voters to make that decision," Obama said.

Then, as he squinted into the bright sunshine, he made a call for bipartisanship. "Regardless of who becomes the next president, Democrat or Republican, I think we’re all going to have to strip away the ideology, we’re going to have to strip away the politics," Obama said.

"The next president is going to have to make a series of very difficult judgments and balance a set of risks based on the best possible intelligence and information available."

But Obama’s performance so far on the Middle East trip seems to have brought out particularly sharp digs from some McCain supporters.

Representative Heather Wilson, a Republican from New Mexico, called Obama "frighteningly inexperienced" on security and foreign policy matters. She also spoke of his "na vet " in his dealings in Baghdad.

Wilson and others tried to play down a statement by the Iraqi government that said it would like to see all U.S. combat troops out of the country by 2010, an approach that generally meshes with Obama’s call for withdrawal within 16 months of January, which is when the next president will take office. They said Iraq still planned to link withdrawal with conditions on the ground.

Obama still faces one of the biggest political challenges of his overseas trip: the navigation of the Middle East peace process.

It was expected to be one of the topics at his dinner with Abdullah, who flew back early from a visit to the United States to meet with Obama, and will be the focus Wednesday of a series of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Obama is scheduled to meet separately with President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday. He will then go to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Obama struggled during the Democratic primaries to win over Jewish voters, and his meetings Wednesday will be closely watched and examined by both sides. In Washington last month, he endorsed a two-state settlement for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but said that Jerusalem should remain – undivided – the capital of the Jewish nation.

[R.M.: Not quite true! In classic Obama fashion he than had one of his foreign policy advisers explain, on the very next day what he really meant is that Jerusalem should be a final status issue. Of course, this is to assuage Arab objections to Jerusalem remaining the eternal Jewish capital.]

Obama also is scheduled to visit the southern Israeli town of Sederot, near Gaza, which has been hit by more than 2,000 rockets over the past four years. In March, McCain visited Sederot as well as Yad Vashem, the memorial in Jerusalem to victims of the Holocaust.

Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.

Dear friends, the remark of Obama when he says he would not hesitate to overrule American commanders, reminds me strongly of the TV show “Father Knows Best.”

Obama does concede that top U.S. commanders resist the idea of a time table for withdrawing troops, saying that they wanted to retain as much flexibility as possible. However, he stated that his job as a candidate for president and a potential commander in chief extends beyond Iraq.

Asked whether he intended to ignore their advice, Obama declared: “I am factoring in their advice, but placing it in the broader strategic framework that is required.” In other words, Senator Barack Obama, whose whole political career consisted of two rather non-distinguished years as Untied States senator, with absolutely no military background whatsoever, has the incredible CHUTZPAH to criticize commanders such as General David Petraeus, who turned a very bad situation around with his “surge” idea.

What do you, dear reader, think Obama really know best?

With Blessings and Love for Israel,

Ruth Matar

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