JERUSALEM – Barack Obama yesterday talked tough on Iran in the Promised Land.
“A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation – not just in the Middle East, but around the world,” Obama said in Sderot in southern Israel after visiting a family whose home had been destroyed by a rocket lobbed over from Gaza by Hamas.
Stacked behind Obama as he spoke were hundreds of spent Qassam and Katyusha rockets and shrapnel collected by local police after the attacks.
No one here doubts that Iran stands squarely behind Hamas efforts to terrorize the region.
“A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama said, adding that he would take no options – including a pre-emptive US strike – off the table to stop Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from getting the bomb.
The Democratic candidate also said that “America must always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself against those who threaten its people.”
But for many pro-Israel supporters, Obama’s increasingly tough talk doesn’t square with some of the top advisers he’s picked to help him draft his policy positions on the region.
Dan Kurtzer, Jim Steinberg and Dennis Ross, who are traveling with Obama, have long been viewed suspiciously by Israel’s staunchest defenders.
The trio has long advocated opening dialogue – with US involvement – between Israel and enemies sworn to her destruction.
The newspaper Haaretz noted that Israelis find the Democratic nominee’s Middle East policies “disconcerting, particularly due to the presence in his entourage of veteran peacemakers” – citing Ross and Kurtzer.
Later that morning, when Obama met for an hour with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, he was accompanied by Kurtzer, Steinberg and Ross.