Today, the leaders of major Jewish American organizations sent the following open letter to the Jewish Community condemning the hateful and false emails attacking Senator Barack Obama. A similar letter was sent by all 8 Jewish Democratic Senators (Cardin, Boxer, Feinstein, Levin, Stabenow, Wyden, Feingold and Kohl).

January 15, 2008

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community:

Republican Presidential Candidate Sen. John McCain told Haaretz that he wanted former Secretary of State James Baker to resolve the Israel-Palestinian question.

McCain told Haaretz that as president, he would "micromanage" U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians and would dispatch "the smartest guy I know" to the region, presumably to jump-start a new push for a comprehensive accord.

Washington, D.C. -- Today, a new American Jewish Committee (AJC) poll found that 58% of Jewish Americans self-identify as Democrats – this represents an increase of ten percentage points from 2002 and four percentage points in the last year alone. Jews self-identified as Democrats by 48% in 2002, 54% in 2004 and 54% in 2006. Republican self-identification among Jews remains at 15%, down three points since 2002 when 18% of Jews self-identified as Republican.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), noted for his frequent trips to Syria and Lebanon (including one during the Hezbollah conflict of 2006) recently sent out a fundraising letter to Arab Americans based on a disturbing tactic: attacking the Pro-Israel lobby.

Issa explained in his fundraising appeal that Congress wanted to draft a resolution in 2006 after the short-lived war between Hezbollah and Israel broke out. He wrote that Arab-American members of Congress wanted to call on both sides to limit the number of civilian casualties.

The perception that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani unfailingly supports Israel is beginning to show cracks as his business dealings come to light, putting him in the same category as McCain and Romney who have made statements that caused others to question their support of the Jewish community and Israel.

On May 15, 2007, CBS and AP both published stories that his firm, Bracewell & Giuliani lobbied for the Saudi government, Saudi oll industry and represented Saudi Arabia in several court cases in the United States.

Washington, DC June 27, 2007 164 Republicans voted against expanding aid to Israel last week, opposing the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill (H.R. 2674), ignoring pleas from groups such as AIPAC to support expanding aid to Israel to $2.4 billion. The legislation passed anyway by a margin of 241-178.

In 2004, and 2005 the GOP-run Congress cut aid to Israel.

This year the Democratic Congress proposed expanding aid to Israel $2.4 billion with increases over the next couple of years.

The House of Representatives Passed H.Con. Res. 21, calling for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be referred to the United Nations Security Council for inciting genocide by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map." The resolution was authored by Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and moved on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-CA) who represents much of the Pico- Fairfax area of Los Angeles. 103 Members of Congress, including both Democrats and Republicans were co-sponsors. The resolution passed 411-2.

In a recent interview with Donny Deutsch on MSNBC's the "Big Idea," Right-Wing columnists gave her vision of a "perfect America." Here are a couple of excerpts:

COULTER: ....take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they --

DEUTSCH: Christian -- so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

____

DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or --

In a recent interview with Beliefnet , when asked if he believed the United States was a "Christian Nation", Mcain responded:

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed H.Con.Res. 152 calling for a united Jerusalem and demanding that President Bush keep his promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jersusalem.

The Concurrent Resolution, written by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA) and cosponsored by 12 Democrats (including Brad Sherman) and 2 Republicans, demanded that the President comply with the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act (and keep his own promises) and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.