Obama under fire for comment on Palestinians

Iowa Democrat calls presidential hopeful’s remark ‘deeply troubling’

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Obama under fire for Palestinian comments
March 15: Barack Obama is under fire for telling an Iowa Jewish group that "no one's suffering more than Palestinians. MSNBC-TV’s Chris Jansing and Chicago Tribune’s James Warren discuss.

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updated 3:16 p.m. ET March 15, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa - A prominent Iowa Democrat says he is troubled by Sen. Barack Obama’s comment about the Palestinians and pressed the Democratic presidential candidate to clarify his remarks.

Obama, speaking to a small group of Democratic activists in Muscatine on Sunday, was quoted in the Des Moines Register as saying, “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”

David Adelman wrote a letter Tuesday to Obama calling the comment “deeply troubling.” Adelman is a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies in support of a strong relationship between the United States and Israel, and the Greater Des Moines Jewish Federation.

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Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama, said the senator’s comments were consistent with his previous statements.

“Senator Obama has always said that the security of Israel should be America’s starting point in the Middle East,” Vietor said. “As he stated in his speech (at AIPAC) and again in Iowa, he also believes that in the end, the Palestinian people are suffering from the Hamas-led government’s refusal to renounce terrorism and join as a real partner in the peace process.”

Adelman, a Des Moines attorney, is a politically active Democrat and works as a lobbyist, but he said he has not yet made a choice on whom he will support in 2008.

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