Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Uzi Dayan charged that the Obama camp deceived him in an interview used to promote the Democratic presidential candidate. Former intelligence boss Ephraim HaLevy said he also was duped.
"It simply was deception," Dayan, a former deputy IDF Chief of Staff, told Voice of Israel government radio Monday morning. "These were respectable people but what they did was not respectable and what they did was unethical."
Dayan, HaLevy, reserve Brigadier-General Shlomo Brom and other former senior IDF officers were interviewed by a Jewish group backing Sen. Barack Obama. The Jewish Council for Education and Research took excerpts of their statements and put them together in a commercial that shows them supporting Sen. Obama.
Halevy is quoted as saying that Sen. Obama is a "good communicator" and that the next president must talk to Iran to stop it from becoming a nuclear power, implying that he backs Sen. Obama.
Dayan also stated the next president must talk with Iran, a policy supported by Sen. Obama and rejected by his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain.
HaLevy told Voice of Israel, "I said that Obama makes a good impression, but I also said the same thing about McCain. They asked me whom I support, and I responded that an Israeli should not express an opinion, but that was not in the video clip. I think it was an improper use of the interview with me." He said he was explicitly told the film would not be used for campaign use.
Dayan and HaLevy have demanded that the Obama camp delete their appearances in the film.
The commercial also quotes reserve Brig. Gen. Brom as saying that the Bush administration has harmed Israel and that Sen. McCain would continue President Bush's policies, implying that Israel would be better off with Sen. Obama as president.
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