McCain gets celebrity welcome in J'lem

Presidential hopeful "deeply moved" by exhibitions at Yad Vashem; met by crowds of American tourists.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
john mccain AJ 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi [file])
john mccain AJ 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi [file])
Pledging 'never again,' presumptive US Republican Party presidential nominee John McCain received a hero's welcome in Jerusalem on Tuesday evening, as he opened a two-day trip to Israel with a visit to Yad Vashem. The Arizona senator was greeted by dozens of American tourists at the Holocaust Museum who chanted "Mac is back" as he shook their hands and posed for photographs. "I want to thank the people who manage this incredible place for all their hard work and dedication to make a reality of remembrance of man's inhumanity to man and a remembrance to the courage and bravery and sustainability of the human spirit," McCain said. He said that when he saw the pictures of the concentration camps he was reminded of the book Man's Search for Meaning by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl and of his words, "They take everything from us but our right to choose." "We have chosen now as a nation and a world to make sure that 'never again' is a reality," McCain said. McCain was visibly moved during his 90-minute visit to the memorial and museum, his eyes welling with tears as he viewed photographs from Nazi death camps. Accompanied by Sen. Joe Lieberman from Connecticut and Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, two of his top supporters, he laid a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance in memory of the 6 million victims of the Holocaust and lit a memorial flame. "I am deeply moved. Never again," he wrote in the visitors' book.