With the US presidential election neck-and-neck, President Barack Obama’s
campaign has gone to the far reaches of Sderot to get people to articulate their
support for the president.
“Thank you, Mr. Obama, about everything,”
Pinchas Amar, identified as a Sderot resident, said in English in a heavy
Israeli accent with unique Israeli syntax in a video entitled What do Israelis
think of Obama?.
The three minute video was uploaded Wednesday onto
YouTube by the National Jewish Democratic Council.
It opens with a bossa
nova instrumental and some shots of the Iron Dome battery in the South. It then
moves to the White House where on July 27 Obama signed an order allocating an
additional $70 million for the Iron Dome.
And then it is off to Sderot,
where a parade of local residents – Sasson Sara, David Segev, Chaim Yosef,
Albert Tsadikov and Jacob Dahan – sing Obama’s praises.
“Sderot is
important to him. The Jewish people are important to him. The State of Israel is
important to him,” Sara says in Hebrew, over English subtitles.
“I trust
President Obama. There is no doubt in my mind [that] he knows what he is doing,”
declaimed Segev.
And Yosef, a young man with a large black yarmulke, said
that the Iron Dome allows him to sleep better.
“Before the Iron Dome I
was afraid to fall asleep because every time the siren went off, I knew I had to
run to safety. Now, with the Iron Dome existing, I am a lot less
fearful.”
Then the viewer is taken to Jerusalem where unidentified
passersby join the pro-Obama chorus.
“He is a good fit for the Jews. He
is perfect,” says one man in Mahane Yehuda. Another man, this one haredi, says
“I hope that he will succeed. You can count on him. He is a very bright
man.”
A woman with her hair covered, standing in front of a vegetable
stand, says “He cares about us. No complaints. It is a lie if someone
said he doesn’t care about us.”
The video, far from the slickest to
appear on the Internet, ends with a shot of the Iron Dome intercepting an
incoming missile.
And now over to you, Republican Jewish Coalition.