Washington (JTA) — In a bid to quell growing unease about his relationship with a black preacher known for strident rhetoric, Barack Obama described the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s views on America — including its relationship with Israel — as fundamentally “distorted.”
Obama addressed the issue during a hastily scheduled speech in Philadelphia, days after the media began airing video clips of Wright’s harsh condemnations of American policy, including an assertion that the United States brought the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks upon itself.
Wright is Obama’s longtime pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, an Afrocentric church on Chicago’s South Side.
On Tuesday, Obama dedicated most of his speech to addressing Wright’s general criticisms of the United States and the wider topic of race in America, but also spent a few moments addressing the claim about Israel.
“The remarks that have caused this recent firestorm … expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.
“A view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”
Obama strongly criticized Wright’s remarks, but also said the pastor’s views must be understood in the context of the racism blacks have suffered. He also urged Americans to accept a fuller image of Wright and their relationship.
Call to quit
Some Jewish organizations praised Obama’s speech.
Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the specific reference to Wright’s anti-Israel views was reassuring.
“From our perspective, the specific reference and to condemn radical Islam is a sensitivity to our community,” Foxman told JTA just after Obama completed his speech.
Even while praising some parts of the speech, Foxman echoed concerns over Obama’s insistence on contextualizing Wright.
“I think there is a great deal of sincerity and eloquence in trying to communicate the scars of racism in our country,” Foxman said.
“For us, the ADL, we’re disappointed and troubled and distressed by an effort to excuse and rationalize. Pain does not justify bigotry and anti-Semitism.”
In a post to its Washington blog, the Orthodox Union directed readers to Obama’s rebuttal of Wright on the Israel point, while adding that the speech was “much broader” than just a rejection of the pastor’s remarks and “worth reading in full.”
Among those criticizing Obama was former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who addressed the topic during a convention Sunday organized by the United Jewish Communities.
“If my rabbi had made those statements, I would have left the synagogue immediately,” said Fleischer, an active board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “It really troubles me that Barack Obama only waited until now to speak out about this issue.”
The Zionist Organization of America, a group that has had its own controversies of affiliation with Israeli politicians who advocate transferring Arabs out of the country and with Christian leaders who speak of holy war with Islam, planned to call on Obama to quit his church.
After Obama’s speech Tuesday, ZOA President Morton Klein said the organization had not changed its view. Klein said that Obama gave his pastor “a pass by giving a basis and rationale for why Wright and other blacks feel the way they do.”
Many of Obama’s defenders say it is unfair to hold him accountable for everything his pastor says.
In addressing the same UJC gathering at which Fleischer spoke, one of Obama’s top Jewish surrogates — former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer — said “we would not want to be judged by rabbis who sometimes say ridiculous things.”
“We would hope that we would be strong enough to denounce them, as the senator has done with his pastor,” Kurtzer said.
(JTA managing editor Ami Eden contributed to this report from New York.)
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