(Newser)
–
With Republicans hammering President Obama on Israel, his shaky relationship with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the looming threat of Iran's nuclear program, Obama's AIPAC speech this morning could be a "a pivotal moment" for keeping the Jewish vote heading into this fall's election, says the Hill. “The feeling is that there’s just no empathy there,” says a former adviser to presidents Reagan and George W. Bush. “And he hasn’t done anything to really change that."
He's going to need all the help he can get. Just yesterday, an anti-Obama group put out a 30-minute film slamming his Israel policies called Daylight: The Story of Obama and Israel (which you can see here). But with Democrats fearful that the Jewish vote is up for grabs, many are rallying around the president and pushing his bona fides on Israeli security. "No smear campaign can change the fact that the president has not wavered in his support for the Jewish state and effort to curb the Iranian nuclear program," wrote DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a recent editorial.
