DEERFIELD BEACH, Florida - Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden stood up for running mate Barack Obama on Tuesday, insisting that he is a friend of Israel.

Speaking at a largely Jewish senior citizen community center, Biden, known as a strong supporter of the Jewish state during his 35 years in the Senate, said Obama shares his longtime support of Israel as an important ally in the often volatile Middle East.

Biden said he would not have agreed to give up his job as chairman of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to become Obama’s vice presidential nominee “if I didn’t in my gut and in my heart and in my head know that Barack Obama is exactly where I am on Israel.”

Biden said he offered his defense of Obama because there is “some scurrilous stuff going on on Internet, particularly in Florida,” which is considered a swing state in the Nov. 4 election.

Some blogs and emails have disseminated talk that Obama is secretly a Muslim — he is in fact Christian — as well as anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.

“I promise you the stuff you are getting on the Internet is simply not true,” said Biden, a Delaware Democrat.

Biden added Israel has become less secure during the eight years of outgoing Republican President George W. Bush’s reign.

“I promise you, we will make it more secure,” Biden said, drawing applause from a crowd of several hundred people.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

SDEROT, Israel - Barack Obama pledged his support for Israel Wednesday while standing in front of a pile of rocket and mortar casings in a town repeatedly attacked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
 
“I am here to say as an American and as a friend of Israel that we stand with the people of Sderot and all of the people of Israel,” the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate told reporters at the town’s police station.
 
Sderot has been a popular stop on the U.S. campaign trail this year. Republican presidential contender John McCain visited the town in March — but with a smaller press contingent — and also spoke to reporters in front of the piles of rockets.
 
“If people were rocketing my state, I think that the citizens from my state would advocate a very vigorous response,” McCain said at the time.

Obama had a similar view. “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he said. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

Since McCain’s visit, rocket fire on Sderot has largely stopped due to a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Obama’s visit is aimed at allaying wariness among some Jewish voters in the United States who are concerned about his support for Israel and his policies for the Middle East.
 
Obama, a Christian, has had difficulty dispelling rumors suggesting he is a Muslim and that his advisers have a pro-Arab bent. The New Yorker magazine lampooned the image with a cover cartoon portraying Obama in traditional Muslim garb and his wife sporting an AK-47 — a picture that sparked outrage in many circles.
 
Obama was ridiculed and criticized in April when a top Hamas adviser told a radio interviewer that the Palestinian militant group — considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government — liked Obama and hoped he would win the U.S. presidential election.
 
The remarks were labeled a Hamas endorsement and McCain used them as part of a fundraising appeal to supporters.
 
Hamas changed its mind about Obama last month after he declared strong support for Israel in an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The group said the two U.S. candidates had the same policy on the Mideast and so it had no preference.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama walks by shelves of rocket casings in Sderot on Wednesday); Reuters/POOL New (McCain stands in front of rocket casings in Sderot March 19)

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may have taken care of his Hamas problem on Wednesday with a speech to the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby.
 
The Illinois senator was ridiculed, criticized and generally harassed back in April when a top Hamas adviser, Ahmed Yousef, told a radio interviewer that the Palestinian militant group — considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government — liked Obama and hoped he would win the U.S. presidential election.

Yousef’s remarks were labeled a Hamas endorsement and Republican John McCain used them as part of a fundraising appeal to supporters. Obama’s denunciations of Hamas and criticism of McCain over the incident did little to undo the damage.
 
That may have changed Wednesday, when Obama went before American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington a day after clinching the Democratic nomination and declared his strong support for Israel.
 
Israel’s security is sacrosanct and it must retain a qualitative military advantage, Obama said. Any peace deal must include Palestinian recognition that Jerusalem would remain Israel’s undivided capital, he said.
 
Hamas promply unendorsed Obama, a Christian who has had difficulty dispelling a rumor campaign suggesting he is a Muslim and that his advisers have a pro-Arab bent.
 
“Obama’s comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza.
 
“The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians,” he said.
 
“Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win,” Zuhri said.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

 Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama speaks at AIPAC conference)