IDF Generals and Mossad Do NOT Endorse Obama

IDF Generals and Mossad Do NOT Endorse Obama

A video released by the Jewish Council for Education & Research, (JCER) which appeared to show several retired senior IDF and Mossad officials endorsing Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has proven to be misleading, with a number of officials who appeared in the video saying on Monday that their words were taken out of context.

The film's producers stressed in response that the Obama campaign was not involved in any stage of the production.

"It's not only misleading, it was an interview about what the next president was going to have to deal with," former deputy chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan told The Jerusalem Post. "And to know that they used this interview and took five seconds, and put me in a list of people praising Barack Obama…

"It wasn't about the campaign, it was about the political and security issues of the Middle East that the next president should be involved in," he continued. "Nothing was said about Obama or [Republican Presidential candidate John] McCain."

"I don't want other people to interfere in my elections, and I must not interfere with the elections in the United States," he said, adding that to do so would be neither "ethical nor smart."

In the video, the senior Israeli officials appear to support Obama's stated policy that dialogue with Iran would be the best way of confronting the current nuclear crisis. Dayan said that his position is just the opposite.

"I don't think that we - either the United States or Israel - should be engaged with Iran, because the Iranians will take advantage of that," the former deputy chief of staff said. "Our objective is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability."

"We need more powerful, effective sanctions to delegitimize [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad," he continued. "A military option should be prepared, but utilized only as a last resort."