Jerusalem – Former American vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin expressed support for Jews praying openly on the Temple Mount on a visit to the Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday, officials who accompanied Palin said.
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Palin and her husband Todd arrived for a two-day visit on Sunday afternoon and toured the Western Wall and its adjacent tunnels. They will visit the Old City again on Monday, tour Gesthsemane and the Mount of Olives, and have dinner with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at their official residence in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu has already met in Jerusalem over the last two months with a number of leading US politicians considered as likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
World Likud chairman and Likud MK Danny Danon and Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz served as Palin’s tour guides on Sunday night. Palin was told that Jews were not allowed to pray openly on the Temple Mount and about the Arab riots that accompanied Netanyahu’s decision to authorize the creation of an exit from the Western Wall tunnels in 1996.
“Why are you apologizing all the time?” Palin asked her guides.
Palin expressed regret that she would not be able to visit Nazareth or Bethlehem during her brief stay in Israel, but promised that she would soon come back for longer.
“It’s overwhelming to be able to see and touch the cornerstone of our faith,” Palin told reporters upon exiting the tunnels. “I’m so thankful to be able to be here, and I’m thankful to know the Israel-American connection will grow and strengthen as the peace negotiations continue.”
Rabinowitz said that Palin prayed at the point closest to the Holy of Holies and left a note with a personal prayer. Unlike the incident that occurred when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama visited the Western Wall in July 2008, nobody removed her note from the Wall and gave it to the press.
“She said that she absolutely supports Israel and that America is the biggest friend that Israel has,” Rabinowitz said.
When Rabinowitz shared the story of Purim with Palin, she told him it was especially meaningful to be at the Kotel on Purim.
Danon said that Palin’s visit to the Western Wall Tunnels was very exciting.
“She really connected to the story of the Jewish nation,” Danon said. “She knows the material but there’s nothing like standing in front of those big stones and hearing about the connection. I know that she loves Israel, and after a visit like this, she has a personal connection to the Western Wall.”
He called upon Obama to make his first visit to Israel as president as soon as possible.
Palin, who was wearing a large Star of David, told Danon that she had flags of Israel “on my desk, in my home, all over the place” and that she would carry around a flag she bought in Israel.
“She didn’t go into diplomatic issues, but I can clearly say from the questions she asked in relation to our conflict here with the Muslims in these holy sites that she knows that we are right and that the Muslims are just claiming things for provocation and they’re not right,” Danon said.
She absolutely supports Israel. So, of course, the liberal American Jews all hate her.
She is absolutely delightful.
How can he demand obama come to israel? He had too much to do but – BH – he doesnt do his job
So Palin has the chutzpah to paken against the overwhelming majority of Orthodox rabbis in the world, who argue that Jews should not ascend the Temple Mount at all!
They have this visceral hatred for her because she can beat Obama and they know it.
She is a gentile tzadaykis.
Thank goodness that despite an anti Israel, muslim raised president, that there are American politicians that will defend Israel. I am sure that some Jewish quislings will condemn her.
anyone can support israel, how does this qualify her to be able to lead the United States? it’s not an easy job
Leave it to Palin to try to make the Jewish State look weak (“why are you apologizing all the time”).
#’s 9, 12, 13, 16: Pick, pick, pick… you just love picking on a bright, intelligent, lovely and refined lady who’s gutsier and brainier than the sitting pres and who would have made a much more effective Secretary of State than the current actress who holds the office having made it there by riding on her husband’s coattails. Palin may not be quite ready to sit in the White House, but she is nonetheless deserving of our respect, not our scorn.
Let’s remember, only a few months ago she authorized her website to show a target on a map showing the Arizona Congresswoman’s district. And then the poor lady (a Yid by the way) was shot. Yeah, Palin’s a genius alright. And a schlepp.
Maybe I’m crazy but all of you just don’t get it this lady is way ahead of most politicians in America. Lets talk about something you should all be seeing and felling. After the federal government announced QE2 (probably most of you people have no clue what that is) she made a great argument that it will raise inflation trough the roof (and she was the first to mention it) she was called out for it how stupid she is, well any of you go to the grocery lately and see what you’re paying, basics have sky rocketed and don’t dare tell me its because the unrest in the middle east so oil prices have gone up so everything in America is more expensive that’s a myth its because of INFLATION. This just one simple thought about what she has to offer that all of you should be able to relate to.
And for all you haters out there, she aint that stupid and you aint that smart!!!!
and you rino’s will never get it!!
Palin is like the ring leader for a nation of the blind, wretched and flaky.