News Brief05:35 AM

(IsraelNN.com) The Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria "at this juncture [is] not helpful" towards reaching a peace accord with the Palestinian Authority (PA), Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama told the Atlantic Monthly. He reiterated his "non-negotiable" commitment to Israel's security, which he said is endangered by the lack of an agreement with the PA. "You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel’s security," he told the magazine.

Sen. Obama stated that when he visited Ramallah, he told Arabs, "If you are waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional." He also rejected former American President Jimmy Carter's constant referral to Israel as an apartheid state as "emotionally loaded [and] historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe."

Concerning friction between him and large sectors in the American Jewish community, he told the magazine, "I am not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically." He added that the present situation is "a constant wound that does infect all of our foreign policy."