By Stan Goodenough
Feb 27, 2008
United States Democrat and presidential hopeful Barak Hussein Obama told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot in comments published Wednesday that he is "a committed Christian" and has "never been" a Muslim.
The newspaper, which enjoys the widest readership in Israel, said it had put a number of questions to Obama because "his political rivals [had] attempted to paint him as a pro-Arab Muslim [and] have spread rumors that Obama attended a madrasa (Islamic religious school) in Indonesia, which served as a terrorist training camp."
One of the questions read: Some people in Israel and some Jewish American leaders have expressed concern that you would be more sympathetic to the Arab side because of your Muslim background. How do you respond?
Obama replied:
"First it is important to establish the facts. Here are the facts: I am not a Muslim and I never have been. I never attended a madrasa. I did not take my oath of office on a Koran. I am a committed Christian. I lived in Indonesia for four years as a child, where I attended secular schools. I took my oath of office on our family Bible."
If he is elected President, Obama said, "I will carry with me to the White House an unshakeable commitment to the security of Israel and the friendship between the United States and Israel."
A friend he might call himself, but on January 20 the website israelinsider.com reported that, "as Obama struggled to articulate his stance on key Mideast issues in dispute," he stated that he supported cutting the land of Israel in half.
"The Palestinians have a legitimate concern that a state have a contiguous coherent mass that would allow the state to function effectively," he said.
Commented israelinsider: A land corridor between Gaza and the West Bank [sic] would effectively cut Israel in half, making it incoherent and non-contiguous, divided into northern and southern portions by the Palestinian land-mass Obama supports.
The Democratic candidate had not explained why he believed it was legitimate for the "Palestinians" to have a coherent and contiguous territory at Israel's expense.
Obama also confirmed, in his response to Yediot, that he wants to "talk" to the Middle East's leading terrorists, including Iranian megalomaniac and antisemite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - a man who repeatedly calls for, and is pursuing weapons to achieve, Israel's destruction.
Interestingly, Fox News reported Wednesday that one of Obama's favorite films is "Lawrence of Arabia" - the epic story that, perhaps more than any other work, established the century-long love affair that persists between western nations and the Arab world.