De Pro-Israel Lobby 29

'Obama Set For Big Jewish Push
Major Mideast policy speech could come at JCPA plenum; ex-Clinton official on board as Jewish adviser.
James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent

With millions of campaign dollars at stake as well as votes in a handful of key primary states, the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is poised to dramatically increase its Jewish outreach.That includes the recruitment of top Jewish donors and advisers, and an expected major speech on Israel and the Middle East that a Democratic insider said “will set the baseline and establish Sen. Obama as a reliable, strong supporter of Israel.”The first-term senator formally announced his plans last weekend to seek the 2008 Democratic nomination.This week Obama campaign officials were talking to leaders of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), whose Washington plenum — which begins Feb. 24 — could provide a high-profile venue for the anticipated speech.Jewish Democrats suggest the JCPA event — with a broad spectrum of Jewish groups participating, but a generally liberal crowd — could be an ideal venue for the official launch of the Obama Jewish outreach effort.Nathan Diament, Washington director for the Orthodox Union and a former Harvard Law School classmate and pickup basketball partner of the Illinois senator, said he has been in touch with the campaign to discuss the pro-Israel themes he hopes the candidate will strike.Diament said Obama’s appeal among those Jewish voters “who put Israel high on their list of political priorities” will depend on the senator’s fleshing out his Middle East views.The impending Obama Jewish push may take on greater significance if, as many state politicians prefer, New York moves up its presidential primary to next February. That change would increase the importance of the Jewish vote in both the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries.The campaign has also signed on a leading Jewish Mideast expert, Dan Shapiro, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton administration. Shapiro is leaving his position as a top aide to Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) for a job with a Washington lobbying firm and a role doing Mideast policy and Jewish outreach for the Obama campaign.At the same time, the freshman senator signaled over the weekend that he isn’t going to follow the well-established path of repeating all the positions advocated by pro-Israel lobbyists.On Sunday, speaking on the CBS program “60 Minutes,” Obama was asked if he would “talk to Iran and Syria,” nations on the Bush administration diplomatic blacklist.Obama did not mince words.“Yes,” he said. “I think that the notion that this administration has — that not talking to our enemies is effective punishment — is wrong.”Like countless other candidates in both parties, he cited a former Republican president to prove his point, noting that Ronald Reagan met with Moscow during the Cold War. Obama did not reject the eventual use of military force to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions but said he thought “our first step should be a much more aggressive approach to diplomacy than we’ve displayed thus far.”The candidate’s words won praise from at least one leading Jewish pro-peace process advocate.'

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