Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on U.S. Jews to back a continued U.S. presence in Iraq.
“When America succeeds in Iraq, Israel is safer,” Olmert said late Monday in a live satellite address from his Jerusalem home to 6,000 delegates attending the American Israel Public Affairs Committee s annual policy conference in Washington. “The friends of Israel know it, the friends who care about Israel know it. They will keep the Americans strong, powerful and convincing.”
Olmert’s plea was greeted with polite applause in a hall packed with hundreds of representatives from the Democratic and Republican Parties and at a time when the Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress are pushing legislation that would roll back the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Delegates greeted Olmert’s repeated entreaties, delivered from the living room from his home at 4 a.m. Israel time, with polite applause; AIPAC is striving to build bipartisan support for tightening sanctions on Iran.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
