Top Jewish Donor Shuts Wallet for Obama
May 26, 2011
Haim Saban, a billionaire Israeli-American donor to the Democrats has announced he won’t be donating to President Obama’s re-election effort. Michelle Caruso-Cabrera of CNBC reports:
The most prominent Israeli-American business leader in the United States, Haim Saban, says President Obama needs to do more to show his support of Israel in light of the President’s comments last week suggesting Israel needs to return to its pre-1967 borders to achieve peace with the Palestinians.
In an exclusive interview with CNBC, Saban, one of the biggest individual supporters to the Democratic Party and chairman of Saban Capital Group, said Obama needs to visit Israel as he has done with other countries in the Middle East.
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Saban will continue to donate to other Democrats and Democrat causes. But for every entertainment industry billionaire alienated by Obama last week, there are many more Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel alienated by Obama’s speech last Thursday.
Democrats realize that Obama blundered big time. Debbie Wassserman-Schultz, chair of the DNC, even tried to use PM Netanyahu to urge Jewish Republicans to put Israel off the table in themcoming elections. Fat chance. It is a genuine policy difference, and the American people overwhelmingly reject Obama’s philo-Palestinian approach.
In key swing states Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, Jews are more numerous than in most of the country, and a swing of 10 percent or more of the Jewish vote could make a big difference.
Obama is already trying to walk back his comments on the ‘67 borders, but the words still hang there in the air, unforgettable to all who care about Israel’s survival.
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