Drudge Continues Right-Wing Distortion Of Obama's Record On Israel By Claiming Obama Hasn't Visited Israel
The Drudge Report continued the false right-wing narrative that Obama is hostile to Israel by claiming that President Obama hasn't visited Israel. In fact, as a presidential candidate, Obama visited Israel in 2008.
Since as far back as 2008, right-wing media have waged a years-long campaign to make the President seem out of step with or even hostile to Israel. These ludicrously false attacks have included claims that Obama and members of his administration are anti-Semitic, claims that Obama had sympathies toward terrorist groups, and claims that Obama would actually use military force against Israel.
Today, following a report that Mitt Romney plans to visit Israel this summer, Drudge posted the following two headlines:
However, the first headline posted by Drudge links to a New York Times story that reported:
Mr. Obama, too, came here as a presidential candidate, in July 2008 before his speech in Berlin. He met with Mr. Netanyahu -- then the leader of the opposition -- as well as Israel's prime minister, defense minister, Mr. Fayyad and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. He visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum, and Sderot, the Israeli town near the border of the Gaza Strip that is the frequent target of missile attacks.
Though President Obama visited Israel as a candidate, it hasn't been unusual for a president to not make a trip to Israel during a first term. None of the previous three Republican presidents made trips to Israel at this point in their presidencies; neither Ronald Reagan nor George H.W. Bush made trips to Israel as president at all.
