As United States President Barack Obama prepared to address the Muslim world in Cairo, Jewish activists gathered in Jerusalem Wednesday to tell him, “Obama: Hands off the land of Israel.” Hundreds of people turned out for the rally, held opposite the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.
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In the above video (Macintosh-friendly), a Jewish teenage girl from Gush Etziyon speaks at the rally.
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"We came to declare: Barack Hussein Obama! Hands off the land of Israel! You cannot appease the Islamic lust for conquest by selling down the Jews and their Biblical homeland,” organizers said in a press release.
MKs Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari of the Ichud Leumi (National Union) spoke at the event, as did Dr. Motti Keidar of Bar Ilan University, Nadia Matar of Women in Green, residents of Judea and Samaria and several others. Esther Pollard read a letter she wrote to Obama on behalf of her husband, Jonathan Pollard, and later delivered the letter to the consulate.
Organizers linked the rally to Obama's speech the next day. “It is clear from all [Obama] and his State Department supporters have said that Israel, the Jewish homeland, is to be the fall guy in all his delusional plans for peace and security,” said Women in Green activist Gemma Blech.
Obama did in fact mention Israel in his Thursday speech, calling on the Jewish state to support the creation of an Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and to stop building Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria.
Some protestors at Wednesday's demonstration held signs bearing the phrase, “No, you can't,” a play on Obama's campaign slogan, “Yes, we can.”
Another demonstrator held a sign depicting a young Jewish child in a makeshift treehouse asking his mother, “Mommy, am I an outpost, or natural growth?”
One speaker, young MaiNoah Katz of Neve Daniel in Judea, spoke of the historic Jewish connection to the land of Israel. “Now President Obama wants to tell me that this is not my home? That I'm a stranger and a foreigner here” the eighth-grader asked. “If I don't belong here – where do I belong?”