FromERic in Obama Campaign:

Senator Barack Obama’s positions and statements on the Middle East and his strong support of Israel speak loudly for themselves. You should forward his attached positions and statements to all who have raised questions about his support or his advisors and let them judge for themselves. Here are the facts in response to the most common false attacks about Senator Obama’s advisors.

Regarding Zbigniew Brzezinski, it is important to know that he is not an Advisor. We do not call him an advisor and he does not call himself an advisor. He is a supporter and endorser of Senator Obama and they have spoken about the Iraq war once several months ago, a war which they both opposed from the beginning. Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod made very clear in a public phone call that Brzezinski had not and would not ever be advising Senator Obama on Israel and the Palestinians. The only people who call Brzezinski an advisor are the Clinton campaign – in an attempt to attack Barack Obama because they have nothing negative to say about his 100% pro-Israel policy and statements.

George Soros has made a contribution to the campaign, as have 500,000 other people. He is not advising the campaign.

Rob Malley has no official advisory role in the Obama campaign. He is among many people who has given his advice to the campaign via email, including some ideas that Senator Obama disagrees with. He has also given his ideas to other campaigns, hardly qualifying him as an Obama Advisor (corrected recently by Newsweek after being misreported). See Marty Peretz’s piece below stating the same thing.

Please note that Senator Obama’s advisors on Israel and the Middle East are:

Dennis Ross (Clinton Administration Chief Middle East Envoy)
Tony Lake (Former Clinton National Security Advisor)
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL)
Denis McDonough (Former Foreign Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle)
Dan Shapiro (Former Aide to Sen. Bill Nelson and Clinton NSC)
Eric Lynn (Former Foreign Policy Advisor to Rep. Peter Deutsch)

Trust Obama on Israel

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MARTIN PERETZ , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 3, 2008


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Florida, of course, was a different story, but back in Iowa there was no need for Barack Obama or any other candidate to worry about the Jewish vote. There are 7,000 Jews in the entire state, including 100 hassidim, who work a kosher meat-packing plant in Pottsville.
Yet speaking in Des Moines on December 18, Obama cut to the essence of the Middle East problem at a level of sophistication that ought to be a relief, if not a rebuke, to those who fret about his lack of foreign policy "experience." Obama raised three questions and answered them in a way that no other Democratic aspirant for the nomination has done.
First: Is Israel truly ready to make the concessions necessary to guarantee that a Palestinian state will be more than a "Potemkin village" - a facade without depth or substance?
"I'm confident," Obama said, "that Israel is ready and willing to make some of these concessions if they have the confidence that the Palestinians can enforce an agreement."
This is exactly right. And it is a sign that President Obama would not pressure only one side (Israel) because the other side (the Palestinians) are immune to American pressure.
On his way out the door in 2000, President Clinton actually had a map color-coding the Old City of Jerusalem: Israeli sovereignty on this street, Palestinian sovereignty on that, like the delirious maps drawn in London and Paris back in the early 20th century that burden the Middle East and Africa to this day. Clinton coerced Ehud Barak, then prime minister of Israel, to accept his map and make other concessions. He got nothing out of the Palestinians.
Yet even the most moderate Palestinians now assume that future discussions will start where Clinton left off. It is good to know that Obama understands why that won't work.
THE SECOND question is whether any agreement negotiated with Palestinian leaders can be enforced on the Palestinian people. Most Israelis are ready to make a deal and abide by it. There is no such disposition among Palestinians. Hamas, the party that won the most recent Palestinian elections and that already rules in Gaza, explicitly rejects any deal with Israel.
So what do you do?
Obama's answer, and the right one: You deal with the official Palestinian leadership, which is willing to deal, but you pressure it to take action on other fronts that will bring the people back from Hamas. We "have to make sure that Abbas and Fayad and those that are controlling the West Bank still actually start delivering something tangible that is benefiting the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, that they are ridding [their party] Fatah of the corruption that has been endemic, and are put in a stronger position politically so Hamas is not dictating the terms of Palestinian negotiations but the moderates in the Palestinian camp are dictating what the Palestinian people are willing to go along with."
Third, is this an opportunity to watch democracy flower in the Middle East, as George W. Bush has dreamed? Well maybe, in 1,000 years or so. Meanwhile, Obama grasps that any accord will require strong leadership and even some "dictating" to the moderates. This is not callous. It is realistic. But only if the Palestinian leadership realizes that "now is the time for them to step out of the ideological blind alley that they've been in for so long."
The Israelis have stepped out of their own blind alley of small settlements and lonely outposts planted in densely populated Palestinian areas. Everyone knows how very much actual land Israel will give up so that Palestine can be Palestine. No one yet knows whether the Palestinians are ready to let Israel be Israel.
OBAMA'S POINTS, which he has made many times, should reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for the security of Israel. And yet many are not reassured. They are alarmed by emails saying that Obama's middle name is Hussein (true, and so what?), that he is a Muslim and not a Christian (untrue, and so what if it were true?), that he took the oath of office as a senator on the Koran rather than the Bible (utterly untrue and, once again, so what?).
All these charges have been aired and negated often enough that anyone interested in hearing the truth about them has heard it. But another charge, circulating on the Internet, has not yet been sufficiently refuted. This is that Obama has advisers on the Middle East who despise Israel.
Let's take one example. There are all kinds of spooky rumors that a man named Robert Malley advises Obama on the Middle East. His name comes up mysteriously and intrusively on the Web, like the ads for Viagra.
Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in the New York Review of Books, is anti-Israel. No question about it. But Malley is not and has never been Middle East adviser to Barack Obama. Obama's Middle East adviser is Dan Shapiro.
Malley did, though, work for Bill Clinton. He was deeply involved in the disastrous diplomacy of 2000. Obama at the time was in the Illinois State Senate. So, yes, this is a piece of experience that Obama lacks.
The writer is editor-in-chief of The New Republic.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1202064572983&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull