RJC Troubled by Robert Malley Appointment

Washington, D.C. -- The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) today responded to the announcement that President Obama has appointed Robert Malley to serve as a senior director of the National Security Council, a powerful post inside the White House.

RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks stated:

"We are profoundly disappointed to see Robert Malley return to a senior role in Mideast policy making. His record on regional issues is deeply troubling.

"In 2001, after participating in the Camp David talks as a member of the Clinton foreign policy team, Malley wrote an article in the New York Review of Books that blamed Israel, rather than Yasser Arafat, for the failure of those negotiations. In 2008, Barack Obama severed ties with Malley, then an informal advisor to his presidential campaign, after it was revealed that Malley had met with Hamas terrorists.

"In his second term, Obama has brought back a number of former campaign advisors, who had been put aside for holding unpalatable views in an election year. Malley is the latest and perhaps most disturbing of these. His appointment demonstrates that Pres. Obama was never as in sync with mainstream pro-Israel and Jewish community positions as he pretended to be during his campaigns.

"With the stakes so high, Jewish Americans have more reason than ever to be alarmed by Obama’s personnel choices and the signals they send about the direction of foreign policy - especially with regard to the Middle East and our traditional allies there."