I am supporting Obama for president for two reasons: one is my disdain for the McCain-Palin ticket, and the other my respect and admiration for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Among Jewish voters, some feel the basic question is which candidate will act in the best interest of Israel. The answer is Barack Obama. As an American Jew who loves Israel, I cannot support John McCain. He cannot provide what Israel needs most–a respected, credible, morally strong America. To have the United States and Israel both regarded by the rest of the world as unreliable and in isolation is no way to solve the problems that plague both countries. This has been the effect of the Bush policies, and these are the policies that John McCain has promised to continue. Barack Obama is the candidate who can restore America’s moral authority in the world and position our government to help negotiate peace.

Read more in The Huffington Post…

From The Huffington Post:

Dear Friends and Relations,

A friend and former colleague of mine in the Foreign Service, Kevin McGuire, some time ago drafted a short statement of support for Obama and began to ask retired Foreign Service officers if they would sign it. So far 334 of us have done so, including by my count 66 former American ambassadors.

If you would like to know why we have done so and who we are, you can find our reasons and our signatures at Foreign Policy for Obama.Com: Declaration of Support by Over 280 Former Diplomats. (Ed. note: the number is now over 330.)

You can go to ForeignPolicyforObama.com and click on the link in the left hand column.

I will remind you that the Foreign Service of the United States is our country’s career diplomatic and consular service. We staff both the State Department in Washington and our embassies and consulates abroad. Usually two-thirds or more of our ambassadors are Foreign Service officers, although both Democratic and Republican administrations have made a number of ambassadorial appointments for political reasons. Some of these Republican appointees and, by my count, two former career officers, have come out for McCain.

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Over 330 retired foreign service officers, including 66 former American ambassadors, have endorsed Barack Obama for president.

In contrast, according to former American ambassador Peter Bridges, only two former career foreign service officers have endorsed McCain.

Read more at foreignpolicyforobama.com.

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the United States Senate, is the latest Republican to back Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Pressler is an ardent supporter of Israel.  He sponsored the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which became law in 1999.

Pressler is also a man of the utmost integrity.  He is the only member of Congress to refuse to take a bribe from undercover FBI agents and then to report the bribe attempt to the FBI during the Abscam investigations in 1980.

You can read more about Sen. Pressler’s endorsement at politico.com.

Deborah E. Lipstadt is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. The author of the seminal book Denying the Holocaust, in the year 2000 Lipstadt was sued for libel in British court by Holocaust denier David Irving. In a landmark decision, she won the case by proving that her accusations against Irving were true.

In her wide-ranging endorsement of Barack Obama, Lipstadt writes that she is “firmly in the Obama/Biden camp… as an American, a woman, and a Jew.” Lipstadt discusses many topics, including: anti-abortion legislation and its potential impact on our ability to follow Jewish law; the relationship between the candidates’ proposed policies and the Jewish obligation to give tzedaka; and Obama’s solid support for Israel and the confidence in him expressed by Israeli leaders across the political spectrum.

Click here to read Lipstadt’s endorsement.

By Dennis Ross

It is highly unusual for me to be speaking out politically.

I have worked for Republican and Democratic presidents alike. I was a political appointee during the Reagan administration, serving on the National Security Council staff in the White House. I held a senior position in the

State Department during George H. W. Bush’s presidency. And, I was Bill Clinton’s Middle East peace negotiator — also a senior appointee position.

I have been largely nonpartisan, living the ideal that politics stopped at the water’s edge, and foreign policy should somehow be above politics. So why am I now speaking out and calling on others to support Sen. Barack Obama?

Put simply, because the stakes are so high. For one thing, the financial meltdown has huge implications for our place in the world. We cannot be strong internationally if we are weak at home, with an economy in crisis. Our next president must understand the global economy and financial markets — and be able to inspire confidence at home and abroad. But he must do so at a time when our standing in the world has, at least in my memory, never been lower.

Read more in The Jewish Journal…

September 14, 2008

Dear Friends,

I am writing this letter to you at a time of great urgency for our country and the Jewish people. I have not been so alarmed about the future of America and Israel since I was in college during the Vietnam War and Israel’s wars of survival in 1967 and 1973. I believe the choice of our country’s next president will determine the future of our country’s most fundamental values, including the protection of civil liberties and individual freedoms like a woman’s right to choose and the separation of church and state. Equally important, Israel’s survival may depend on the decisions of the next president. I believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin are the wrong choice to be our new national leaders at this crucial time. I would like to share with you how I reached this conclusion and why I wholeheartedly support Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

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Martin Indyk was Ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state for near east affairs during the Clinton Administra- tion. He now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, where he focuses on the Clinton administration’s diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

During an interview on Australia Broadcasting’s LATELINE show, he endorsed Barack Obama:

LEIGH SALES: We’ve just seen Barack Obama on an international tour designed to shore up his wafer thin foreign policy credentials. And he was feted like a rock star.

With expectations around the world so high for him, isn’t there a real possibility that he can only end up disappointing?

MARTIN INDYK: Well first of all, I have to counter the wafer thin characterisation. I declare that I am a supporter of Barack Obama. I mean, I think if you listen to what he has to say you see a good deal of substance and judgment. (more…)