Chuck De Vore, California US senatorial candidate in primary, June 8th, releases platform statement to Jewish community

(L-R: Stanley Treitel, Chuck DeVore, Howard Winkler, Rabbi Dov Fischer)

"Barbara Boxer will not stand up for Israel.  But she will stand beside the President who is doing grave harm to Israel -- and to America -- so long as he fills her reelection coffers. It tells us everything we need to know about her -- and it tells us why she'll be a former Senator in January 2011.

Israel is our only true ally in the Middle East -- and indeed, one of our few true friends in the world. It deserves better than the attacks it has suffered from the Obama Administration of late. More important, America deserves better. We expect our President to have a clear-eyed understanding of America's interests. Instead, Barack Obama's policy on Israel is apparently driven by petty vindictiveness, coupled with a shocking naïveté, married to an unforgivable ignorance of the Middle East.

For the Administration to 'condemn' -- the strongest possible diplomatic language -- the construction of some apartments in a historically Jewish section of Jerusalem does nothing to advance the cause of peace, and still less the security of our country. Peace is advanced through strength, not weakness -- and through unity, not division. At a stroke, President Obama has diminished both.

Instead, the President and the Secretary of State have only emboldened Israel and America's enemies. Have no doubt that Iran, Syria, and Islamist radicals around the world are watching America turn on its longtime ally. And they approve. Have no further doubt that our allies from Britain to Korea to Afghanistan are seeing the disregard our President has for faithful friendship to the United States -- and drawing the appropriate conclusions.

The plain fact is that neither America nor Israel have ever benefitted from capitulation to pressure from their enemies -- and make no mistake, our enemies are the same. The American people understand this: that's why they overwhelmingly support our enduring friendship with Israel.

Americans stand by Israel because our most sacred principles compel us. This Administration does not appear to share those principles. While Vice President Biden was chastising Israel over apartment construction, the Palestinian Authority was naming a public square after a suicide bomber who slaughtered 37 innocents. Americans instinctually grasp the difference between civilization and barbarism, and they know that a public honor for a mass murderer is perilously close to the latter. It's inexcusable that Barack Obama's Administration doesn't have the same moral sense.

I said the time is come to speak out -- and that's not just true for me. I've been speaking out since I entered public life over twenty years ago. I have a long record supporting Israel in public and private. Decades ago, I worked to secure U.S. funding for the Arrow antiballistic missile system, which is today a critical component of Israel's self-defense. I also worked in Reagan's Defense Department on defeating the Iranian threat of the 1980s. My experience in the Middle East -- academic, professional, and personal -- is longstanding and consistently pro-Israel.

The President of the United States has no such record, and he's not creating one now. In the short run, we must demand that Senator Barbara Boxer stand up for America's interest in the alliance with Israel. She must oppose Barack Obama's ruinous and shortsighted attack on our ally. She has yet to utter a word in Israel's defense, and it is to her discredit.

 

And in the long run, we must elect a United States Senator from California who won't need to be reminded where duty and American interests lie. I am a candidate for this office for that very reason -- and when I am in the U.S. Senate, I will stand strong for America and Israel, where the incumbent and our President do not."