Obama: Israel, US stalwart allies

[oberliner]

WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama spoke Monday at a fundraiser for potential Jewish donors to his 2010 presidential campaign and assured then that Jerusalem and Washington's relations were unshakable.

"One inviolable principle will be that the United States and Israel will always be stalwart allies and friends, that that bond isn’t breakable and that Israel's security will always be at the top tier of considerations in terms of how America manages its foreign policy – because it's the right thing to do, because Israel is our closest ally and friend, it is a robust democracy, it shares our values and it shares our principles," Obama said to roaring applause.

Speaking of the regional changes sweeping the Middle East, Obama stressed that, "Both the United States and Israel are going to have to look at this new landscape with fresh eyes. It's not going to be sufficient for us just to keep on doing the same things we’ve been doing and expect somehow that things are going to work themselves out.

"We’re going to have to be creative and we’re going to have to be engaged. We’re going to have to look for opportunities where the best impulses in the Middle East come to the fore and the worst impulses are weakened."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4084958,00.html