Former President Barack Obama defended his much-criticized legacy as a friend of Israel at a synagogue event in New York this week, joking with the crowd that he was "basically a liberal Jew.”

The first black president defended his record on Israel and Middle East policy at New York’s Temple Emanu-El Wednesday evening—the first time Obama has spoken publicly about Israel since leaving office one year ago.

At the event, Obama said that his decision to criticize Israeli occupation of the West Bank came from a friendly place. “To be a true friend of Israel it is important to be honest about it, and the politics of this country sometimes do not allow for it,” he said.

As one of his last acts in office, Obama had the U.S. abstain from voting on, rather than following the longstanding American practice of vetoing, a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

To some, that act cemented Obama's legacy as an anti-Israel president. Conservatives often criticized the former president's tough love approach to Israeli policy, with right-wing icon Bill Kristol even launching an anti-Obama pro-Israel group, called the Emergency Committee for Israel.

But the 44th president emphasized that his administration was a friend of America's longtime ally in the Middle East. He said, for example, that his administration gave Israel more military support than any other, and that “this is not a matter of dispute,” an indirect reference to a defense bill he signed during his last year in office that included $600 million for aid.

http://www.newsweek.com/obama-jokes-...e-peace-792722

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