Obama Advisor in Past Blamed US Jews for Lack of Mid-East Peace

from Arutz Sheva
by Avi Tuchmayer

Once again, a furor surrounding US Presidential candidate Barack Obama
has erupted, this time over a senior military advisor to the Obama
campaign with a history of anti-Israel remarks. He has strongly
criticized pro-Israel Jews in the United States for allegedly
torpedoing peace efforts in the Middle East.

In a 2003 interview with The Oregonian newspaper unearthed by The
American Spectator magazine, General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a former
chief of staff in the United States Air Force who is a candidate for
secretary of defense in a potential Obama administration, claimed that
efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority
failed because there is no US-written "playbook" to create peace.

An interviewer asked General McPeak "So where's the problem? State?
White House?" McPeak pulled no punches. "(The problem rests in) New
York City. Miami. We have a large vote here in favor of Israel. And no
politician wants to run against it...nobody wants to take on that
problem. It's just too tough politically. So that means we can't . . .
you can't develop a Middle East strategy. It's impossible," he said.

Even prior to the Oregonian interview, McPeak was known as a long-time
critic of Israel's presence in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan
Heights. In a 1976 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, he criticized
Israel for refusing to withdraw from areas liberated in the 1967 Six
Day War, even as he wrote poignantly about the vital security
advantages Israel obtained by conquering those areas.

"At the Suez Canal, Israel had the best 'tank ditch' in the Middle
East. The Gaza Strip, long a nursery for Egyptian-supported terrorism
reaching to within a few miles of Tel Aviv, had come under Israeli
administration. On the Golan, Israel at last held the high ground. The
bulge of the West Bank, an implicit threat that Israel would be cut in
two, had been superseded by the line of the Jordan River. More
important, the air threat to Israel had disappeared, at least for the
moment. Tel Aviv had been 12 minutes flying time from Egyptian bases
in the northern Sinai," he wrote.

Yet the same article calls for an Israeli withdrawal from those areas,
and seems to suggest that despite Israel's legitimate security
concerns, "genuine security depends on regional accommodation, which
the Arab states say cannot occur until all of the occupied territory
is returned."

Latest storm
The storm surrounding McPeak is the latest in a series of anti-Israel
revelations to tar the Obama campaign in recent months. Obama has long
been a favorite son of left wing elements in the United States, but
has been strongly criticized for failing to cut ties with radical
preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright has called Israel a "racist
country," said that "Israel" is a dirty word, and claimed US foreign
policy was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Another anti-Israel activist, Arab-American Ali Abunimah, has claimed
to know Obama well and to have met him on numerous occasions at pro-
Palestinian events in Chicago.

During his tenure as a junior air force commander, McPeak spent time
in Israel and participated in joint exercises with the Israeli air
force. He acknowledged that he enjoyed his experiences here, "but
that's maybe the more cosmopolitan, liberal version of the Israeli
population," he added.

Zionist Canard
McPeak also charged Jews and Christian Zionists with dual-loyalties,
and said that concern for Israel manipulated American foreign policy
in Iraq.

"Let's say that if one of your abiding concerns is the security of
Israel as opposed to a purely American self-interest, then it would
make sense to build a dozen or so bases in Iraq," he said.
.

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