Clinton Says Future of America 'Intertwined' With Future of Israel

By RUSSELL BERMAN, Special to the Sun
December 12, 2005

Senator Clinton voiced support for Israel last night, telling a Yeshiva University audience that the future of America was "intertwined" with the future of the Jewish state.

"In defeating terror, Israel's cause is our cause," Mrs. Clinton said at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where she was given an honorary degree by Yeshiva at its annual Chanukah fund raiser.

In a 20-minute speech to a supportive crowd of more than 700, Mrs. Clinton defended Israel's right to build a security fence and criticized the Palestinian-Arab leadership for a lack of success in combating terrorism.

"We must not only demand, but we must have teeth in our demand that President Abbas dismantle the structures of terror that the Palestinian leadership has employed for so long," Mrs. Clinton said. "President Abbas and his leadership must be held accountable for the action taking place under him."

The senator did not directly address Iraq in her speech. She did, however, touch on what she called the "outrageous" comments of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said that Israel should be wiped off the map and suggested last week that the Jewish state be moved to Europe. Mrs. Clinton, who called a potentially nuclear-armed Iran a "dire threat" to Israel, said the remarks were "beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability."

Mrs. Clinton also spoke about her recent trip to Israel, her second as a senator and first as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mrs. Clinton and President Clinton appeared at a memorial commemorating the anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, whose dream for peace, the senator said, "remains our struggle."

The senator received a standing ovation for her speech, and some audience members praised it afterward.

Mrs. Clinton spoke as a small group of anti-war activists gathered outside the hotel to protest the senator's position on the Iraq war. Protesters from the group, CodePink: Women for Peace, have trailed Mrs. Clinton at her public events across the state in recent days, unhappy with her opposition to an immediate withdrawal of American troops. About a half dozen last night held signs reading, "Hill, You're Not Listening! We Want the Troops Home Now."

"She absolutely refuses to really address the majority of her constituents who were against the invasion and who want the troops out now," a protester from the Upper West Side, Jenny Heinz, said.