Oct 6, 2008 10:26 | Updated Oct 7, 2008 8:43
Ex-generals cry foul over pro-Obama video
By MATT ZALEN AND SHANI ROSENFELDER


A Jewish American group and an Israeli film company blamed each other on Monday regarding claims they had misled a number of retired IDF generals and top Mossad officials who were filmed in a video endorsing Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The Jewish Council for Education & Research (JCER), a non-profit organization that supports Obama's presidential run, distributed the clip online on Sunday.

Former head of the Mossad Ephraim Halevy and former IDF deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan accused the group of taking their words out of context, saying that when filmed they had been told that the issue at hand was the challenges facing the next man in the White House, and not that the film was aimed at endorsing Obama for president.

"It's not only misleading, it was an interview about what the next president was going to have to deal with," Dayan told The Jerusalem Post, "and to know that they used this interview and took [only] five seconds [of it], 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 our 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."