U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio plans a major foreign policy speech Thursday about Israel.
He speaks before a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition, meeting in Palm Beach County.
Republicans have been attempting to fracture the longtime alliance between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party. Jewish Republicans have stepped up those efforts as they argue that President Barack Obama isn’t sufficiently supportive of Israel.
Rubio offered a preview in an interview with the conservative website Newsmax. The former Florida House speaker from West Miami said Obama has undermined Israel.
Here’s part of the Newsmax piece:
In responding to the Israeli raid on a Turkish flotilla, Obama has ignored the fact that the flotilla’s organizers and participants were looking for a confrontation and have “strong direct ties to Islamic fundamentalists, jihadists, and terrorists and to many who do not believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” Rubio, a former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, says.“I believe that there is an organized, systematic attempt to de-legitimize Israel’s right to exist and to undermine Israel’s right to defend itself,” Rubio says. “And so Israel has never needed strong American support more than it needs it now.”
Yet, Rubio says, “Some of the pronouncements and actions of this administration over the last year have emboldened those who are trying to de-legitimize Israel.”
The full article is here.
