Washington – President Barack Obama will have lunch with Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel today, a couple weeks after Wiesel took out full page ads in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune and Wall Street Journal urging the Obama administration to ease up on pressuring the Israeli government on the issue of construction in East Jerusalem.
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Obama and Wiesel will have lunch in Obama’s private dining room, Obama’s schedule says.
The lunch comes as Obama spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, and as Obama’s Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell arrived back in the region to try to start U.S. mediated indirect proximity talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Arab League endorsed the Palestinians going into the talks at a meeting in Cairo over the weekend.
Many saw Netanyahu’s fingerprints on Wiesel’s open letter calling on Obama to defer the contentious issue of Jerusalem, as well as on a similar open letter by World Jewish Congress president and Netanyahu confidant Ron Lauder published as an ad in the New York Times. But in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Wiesel said he is not part of a campaign.
“I believe, it’s my only advice, that you must go ahead toward the peace between the nations, but leave Jerusalem to the end,” Wiesel, 81, said.
Wiesel visited the White House last February when he accepted an award for his work to educate the country on the Holocaust.
Wiesel survived the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Last June, when Obama visited Germany, Wiesel accompanied the president on a tour of Buchenwald.
Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Obama won last year.
The Obama administration has been aggressively stepping up its outreach to the Jewish community in the past couple weeks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the American Jewish Committee conference last week along with visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who also received an honor guard with Defense Secreatry Robert Gates at the Pentagon, as well as a 40 minute meeting with Obama and National Security Advisor Jones.
Yesterday, the NSC’s Senior Director for the Middle East Dan Shapiro explained the Obama administration’s approach to the peace process to the Anti-Defamation League conference, which heard from Obama’s Special Assistant and Senior Director for the Central Region Dennis Ross tonight on the issue of U.S. strategy to Iran and the wider region. The ADL conference also heard from Obama’s envoy to combat anti-Semitism Hanna Rosenthal, the State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, and will hear from Attorney General Eric Holder today.
Meantime, two more American Jewish groups have taken out ads on Jerusalem: the dovish J Street took out ads in Jewish newspapers last week calling for a pragmatic solution to Jerusalem, and the Orthodox Union, which supports continued Israeli control over all of Jerusalem, took out ads this week.
**UPDATE**
President Barack Obama and fellow Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel discussed the need for a renewed Middle East peace process during their private lunch at the White House.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Wiesel said the meeting was a “good kosher lunch” between friends. But he said the conversation did turn serious, as the two Nobel Peace Prize honorees discussed the administration’s attempts to break the deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
J Street would give all of Israel away if it had a say!!!!!!!!
Nice of the president for duin this, but honestly I hold that the president is not obligated to bow to his knees to the jews that are making so much noise. This is what causes anti semitism in the US.
i hope he enjoys the lunch these meetings mean nothing obama is who he is and its to late to change yur colors now
Kosher Food?
I hope he doesn’t back down from his stand of Ahavas Yisroel despite being wined and dined by the sonei yisroel in the White House and Yeedle from #2 could also be included in that clique
“Self-hating Jew”
This is a serious question to which I would genuinely welcome a serious response, please. The reason for my question lies in my screen name.
Can someone kindly explain to me just what is meant by the phrase “self-hating Jew”? What is a “self-hating Jew” and where does the expression come from?
It seems to me that this terrible epithet is being flung out like a lump of wet, smelly mud – or worse.
All sensible answers will be cordially welcomed. Thank you.