Perry vows to up strategic aid to Israel

Rick Perry pledged to increase strategic foreign aid to Israel if elected president, making clear he would permit no ebb in U.S. support for Israel, but also contradicting an earlier pledge to individually evaluate whether any country should receive foreign aid.

"Strategic defensive aid, strategic aid in all forms under a Perry administration will increase to Israel," Perry said.

Perry has fallen under fire from Israel supporters in the three weeks since he said during a GOP presidential debate that he would zero out foreign aid to every country, then weigh the strategic value in restoring it to any nation. Asked later in the debate whether that applied to Israel, the recipient of billions of dollars per year in military support from the United States, Perry said it would, but that Israel would likely be deemed a worthy investment of foreign aid.

Perry shifted his position on Wednesday during a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, attempting to draw a distinction between "traditional foreign aid" and "strategic defensive aid," which he said would continue to be a focus of U.S. foreign policy under his watch.

Perry also called for the United States to side with Israel against "what will inevitably be international condemnation if she is forced to strike" to impede Iran's nuclear program.

"Israel also needs our vocal, un-erring moral support," the Texas governor said.

Perry followed the pattern established by Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the other GOP candidates who spoke before him at the forum by lamenting President Obama and accusing him of apologizing for the United States instead of standing up for its values.

"I'm not a psychiatrist, and I don't know how to ask the question to get into the president's head and say, "Why do you think that? What were you taught?'" Perry said. "That somehow or other America is not a strong and powerful and independent."

Perry was the only candidate addressing the group of Jewish Republicans to directly invoke the Holocaust, pledging that the U.S. would never permit another genocide to be perpetrated against Jews.

"We honor those who suffered the most inhumane treatment," Perry said. "It is in the spirit of thsoe words: never again."

---