Posted on 05/20/2011 6:09:23 PM PDT by beaversmom
Democratic senior statesman Ed Koch says Israel is facing its “most dangerous and critical period” and he is ready to break with his party in the next presidential election over President Obama’s policies on the Middle East.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, the former New York City mayor said, “Mitt Romney correctly summed it up when he said that President Obama has once again thrown Israel under the bus.
“I believe this is the most dangerous and critical period that Israel has ever faced and regrettably it does not have the support of the President of the United States, which in past difficult situations it could count on.”
Koch, who crossed party lines to support President George W. Bush against John Kerry in 2004 due to his foreign policy stance, said he would do it again. All it would take is the right candidate.
“I’m a Democrat. I support the Democratic domestic philosophy and policies and will always be supportive of them,” said Koch, mayor of America’s largest city from 1978-89. “But I have no hesitation in crossing party lines when I think America’s interests demand that I cross party lines.
“I supported President Obama, believing he would be good on foreign policy, particularly with respect to the support of Israel. It turned out badly.”
[…]
Koch was speaking in the light of Obama’s Thursday speech on the Middle East in which the President called for a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine gridlock with borders that were in place before 1967.
Koch said he believes the president took the position because “he thinks it’s more important that America have the support of the Arab nations as opposed to the support of what we heretofore have said was our ally in the Mideast – the only democratic state there.”
But he said he has doubts that the speech will affect the support that Jewish voters have traditionally given Democratic presidential candidates.
“Regrettably the Jewish vote has been tied to the Democratic Party since FDR. No matter who’s running for president, many Jews think it’s still FDR.
“That’s been harmful to the Jewish community supporting the State of Israel.”
The Jewish American voters should know better then to go along with them and be such sheep to slaughter, sadly most don't.
Well said.
Hillary thanks you for your effort, Ed, you fool.
Has there been any comment from Joe Liebermann?
Ed Koch may be a Democrat (although I consider him more “old school”), but even more so he loves his city,and this country. He backed GWB in 2004 because his city was attacked.
I don’t agree with Ed on a lot of issues. He is however not a Kool Aid drinker, thus I refer to him as an old school Democrat. An adult, unlike the petulant child act of Upchuck Schumer. Thus Ed Koch gets my respect.
I have to give him credit when he served as mayor. He took the job when NYC was a basket case, and he got the city back on its feet financially. He made some cuts that made his fellow liberal constituents howl in protest - but it was part of getting the city’s financial house in order. Now maybe Guiliani might have had better organizational skills, but he had another job at the time. Guiliani also did not inherit such a bad situation as Koch did, although Dinkins did his best to screw things up during his four years in office, thus Guiliani essentially continued the recovery work of Ed Koch. No, I am not a Guiliani for higher office fan, I just think that both mayors were the best people for the job at that time given the situation. Now Blooming Idiot is undoing it with his nanny-statism.
You really believe Koch will be like Ronald Reagan? Reagan figured it out before he got his career started in politics. Not after his political career was over.
First of all, this sanctimonious, “self-righteous Jew” never so much as intimated he was going to switch paries, just obama. Furthermore, any claim of Judaism from koch is as worthless as the wind he spoke it on which carried them away as if he never said them. He is pro-homosexual and pro-abortion among other things. These are NOT tenets of Judaism, and if you can find me anywhere in the Old Testament that gives him sanction, by all means tell me, because I have been living a lie all my life.
Good for him, I hope more follow!
One of the most intelligent fools I know of.
That would be nice.
What would be nicer is if it really, truly represented an ideological change as opposed to just a label change.
But this is NY. Switching from Dem to Republican is almost meaningless practically, except for making a statement.
Not much different than, say, Rudy Giuliani...
the infowarrior
Making the trains run on time and picking up the garbage impresses the big termite colonies enough to keep them in power.
We really need to split, one group, ours, ruled by laws and let the others have their royal dictators.
There is obviously a limit to the melting pot theory.
Seriously? Did you read my post and then post that question to me? Then, you think I should answer that?
How sweet.
Far too many American Jews are over-liberal in every area except Israel. The damage that their support for destructive policies is doing to this country is obscene.
Thanks beaversmom.
My husband is from a family of wnat I call “instutional democrats.” They vote that way because they’ve always voted that way. My husband saw the light after Clinton was elected, some times I think he’s now even more conservative that I am. :-)
ACK! Institutional! There!
waiting for the more influential Dershowitz to cross.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.