Thursday, August 23, 2012

How Many of the "Rabbis For Obama" Share Lynn Gottlieb's Anti-Israel Views?

Last week I wrote about a Tel Aviv poll that contradicted a NJDC video purporting that Israelis favor Obama over Romney. Contrary to the impression that the National Jewish Democratic Council video wanted to create, in fact Israelis believe by 39.9% to 18.6% that Romney "assigns more importance to defending Israel’s national interests" than Obama.

Now the Obama campaign has come out with a list of 613 Rabbis For Obama.

The obvious question is, who are these rabbis, and why do they support Obama?

One of those rabbis is Lynn Gottlieb, whose radical anti-Israel views are causing an uproar:
A Republican Jewish group is calling on the Obama campaign to distance itself from a controversial rabbi who has met with anti-Semitic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who sits on the board of an organization that has been listed as one of the “Top Ten Anti-Israel” groups by the Anti-Defamation League.



Gottlieb is only one of 613 rabbis who have signed up as supporting Obama. But it does raise the obvious question of just what are the positions these rabbis have on Israel.

How many of the "Rabbis for Obama" share Gottlieb's view, as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, that boycotts should be used to force Israel to make more concessions in addition to unilateral concessions Israel has been making to the Palestinians for years.

Why, indeed, is Gottlieb on that list?
RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said in a statement that “there can be only two explanations for her inclusion in the list: 1) the Obama campaign failed to properly vet the rabbis on their official list, or 2) they did properly vet the rabbis and chose to ignore Rabbi Gottlieb’s radical views.”
Gottlieb sees no contradiction between her own anti-Israel convictions and Obama's Israel policy.

It is only fair to ask how many of the others on that list share Gottlieb's radical anti-Israel views -- and whether the Obama campaign itself sees Gottlieb's views as consistent with Obama's.

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