Days of Awe
Charles Johnson
Tue Sep 30, 2003 at 5:29 pm PDT • Views: 187
At Power Line, the Big Trunk has a fascinating account of a meeting between President Bush and a group of rabbis right after Rosh Hashanah: Days of awe: Meeting with President Bush. (Hat tip: rizzo.)
“[President Bush] talked about his concern of increasing anti-Semitism in Europe, and how he’s trying to work with them to eradicate it. He said that we have to fight hard all the isms. Then the Hillel rabbi there talked about the swatiska that Rutgers had recently and the shouting down of pro-Israel speakers on various campuses. He said that he knows about some of that, and that he is keeping abreast of it, that it’s a concern. He spoke often about peace and freedom, the importance of optimism and the love of America. He mentioned several times the speech he gave June 24, 2002, where he laid out his principles of fighting terrorism and said the key is to continue to stick to our values and not deviate from them.
“A rabbi mentioned a book he was reading about how the Saudis have continued to profess to be our friends, but support radical Islam all over the world. He asked the President what he thought about it. The President said, ‘You basically stated the question. It’s not just the Saudis. We’re dealing with every country in the Middle East that way except the one democracy, Israel. We have to try to reform them and help them be true democracies.’
Read it all.
Frank says: