Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan economist, and Stanley Ann Dunham.[1] After his parents divorced and his mother married Lolo Soetoro, Obama spent part of his childhood in Jakarta. He attended a Catholic private school and a predominantly Muslim public school before returning to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents and attend Punahou School.[1][4]

Obama's father left for Harvard when Obama was two, and Obama saw him only once more, at age ten.[4] Raised in a household that was not particularly religious, Obama later joined and was baptized at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, where he remained a member for twenty years before leaving in 2008.[4]

Obama married Michelle Robinson in 1992. Their daughters, Malia and Sasha, were born in 1998 and 2001.[1] His 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, explored his family history and the complexities of his biracial identity.[1]

Obama attended Occidental College for two years before transferring to Columbia University, where he studied political science and international relations and graduated in 1983.[1] After working in New York, he moved to Chicago and became a community organizer on the South Side, coordinating with churches on housing improvements and job-training programs in neighborhoods affected by steel-mill closures.[1]

He entered Harvard Law School in 1988 and became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, a distinction that brought him national attention. After graduating, he returned to Chicago, joined a civil-rights law firm, and lectured at the University of Chicago Law School.[1][4]

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 and served from 1997 through 2004.[1][4] His legislative work included measures involving campaign-finance rules, health care, criminal justice, and welfare. He also helped create a state Earned Income Tax Credit, expand early-childhood education, and enact ethics reforms.[5]

In 2004, Obama won election to the U.S. Senate. His keynote address at that year's Democratic National Convention, centered on national unity across political and racial divisions, brought him broad national attention.[1] He later worked with Senator Tom Coburn on federal-spending transparency legislation.[5]

Obama formally announced his presidential candidacy on February 10, 2007.[4] After defeating Hillary Clinton in a closely contested Democratic primary, he selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated Republican nominee John McCain by 365 electoral votes to 173, becoming the first African American elected president.[1] He was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009. On November 6, 2012, he won a second term, defeating Mitt Romney by 332 electoral votes to 206.[1]

Obama entered office during a severe economic collapse and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His first term included economic-stimulus legislation, measures addressing fair pay and consumer protection, health-care reform, and new regulation of financial institutions.[1]

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed on March 23, 2010. The law expanded access to insurance, protected consumers from specified insurance-company practices, and required coverage of preventive services.[6] More than five years after enactment, the administration reported that 16.4 million people had gained health coverage and that 129 million people who might otherwise have been denied coverage or faced discrimination had access to it.[6]

Obama also oversaw the U.S. operation that killed al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.[1] His administration adopted other major initiatives in areas including immigration, climate policy, and consumer financial protection.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama told Jewish leaders in Philadelphia that his ties to the Jewish community predated his political career and that he would be a friend to American Jews and Israel. He also rejected anti-Israel statements by his former pastor and described Hamas as a terrorist organization committed to Israel's destruction.[7]

Obama said he first became familiar with Israel's story at age eleven and connected Jewish continuity and the return to a homeland with his own childhood sense of being without firm roots.[8] In his 2008 AIPAC address, he pledged to preserve Israel's qualitative military advantage, deepen defense and missile-defense cooperation, and defend Israel's right of self-defense. He said Hamas should be isolated unless it renounced terrorism, recognized Israel, and honored previous agreements.[8]

On July 27, 2012, Obama signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act. His administration reported securing $3 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel for FY2012 and an additional $205 million in FY2011 for Iron Dome production.[9]

In September 2016, the administration announced a ten-year security-assistance memorandum covering FY2019 through FY2028. The $38 billion package—$33 billion in Foreign Military Financing and $5 billion for missile defense—was described as the largest single pledge of U.S. military assistance in American history.[3] It succeeded a $30 billion agreement signed in 2007 and gradually ended Israel's ability to spend part of the financing on non-U.S. products.[10][3]

At a December 2015 meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Obama described support for Israel's security as a bipartisan foreign-policy principle and said he was proud of the “unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation” under his administration.[11] In January 2016, he called the U.S. commitment to Israel's security “now and forever, unshakeable” and said breaking that bond would be a “fundamental moral failing.”[12]

Obama's June 4, 2009, address in Cairo sought a new relationship with the Muslim and Arab world. An INSS analysis estimated that about fifteen percent of the speech concerned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama referred to the “unbreakable bond” between the United States and Israel, condemned Holocaust denial, affirmed Israel's right to security, and reiterated support for two states.[13] The INSS author interpreted the speech as a move toward an “honest broker” posture rather than an abandonment of Israel.[13]

Relations with Netanyahu's government began amid disagreement over settlement construction in the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—and East Jerusalem. A later INSS assessment argued that the administration initially sought a complete construction freeze but eventually moved the issue into dialogue with envoy George Mitchell and accepted negotiations between the parties rather than imposed terms.[14] The same assessment noted that strategic cooperation continued despite political disputes.[14]

Obama made his first visit to Israel as president in March 2013, during the first official international trip of his second term.[15] Addressing Israelis in Jerusalem, he invoked Passover, Jewish historical continuity, the Zionist return to the Jewish homeland, Israel's security, and the goal of “two states for two peoples.”[16]

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between Iran, the P5+1, and the EU High Representative. Obama argued that it blocked Iran's route to nuclear military capability for at least ten to fifteen years.[17] The agreement addressed Iran's nuclear program and sanctions but did not resolve concerns about Iran's regional conduct or support for terrorism, limitations that Israeli leaders regarded as serious security risks.[17]

The final agreement followed a November 2013 interim arrangement that froze parts of Iran's nuclear program for six months in exchange for limited sanctions relief. Iran agreed to halt enrichment above five percent and dismantle systems connecting centrifuges.[18]

Netanyahu opposed the emerging agreement and addressed Congress in March 2015, a step that intensified tensions with the White House. An INSS analysis criticized the manner of his appeal to Congress while recognizing Israel's substantive concerns about the agreement.[17] In November 2015, Israel requested $50 billion in U.S. military assistance over ten years, including funding for Iron Dome and Arrow, against the background of a changing regional security environment.[19]

During the 2015 debate, Obama met with leaders of Jewish organizations and argued that the agreement was the best available means of preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon. Critics raised concerns about inspection access, sanctions relief, and the possibility that released revenue would support Iranian regional activities.[20] Iran and the Palestinian issue were among the subjects on which U.S. and Israeli policies diverged most sharply during the Obama years.[2]

On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 by a vote of 14–0, with the United States abstaining.[2] The resolution called Israeli settlements in territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, a “flagrant violation under international law,” demanded an end to settlement activity, condemned terrorism and violence, and rejected changes to the pre-1967 lines except those agreed through negotiations.[2]

The administration defended the abstention as consistent with longstanding U.S. opposition to settlements and support for two states. Ambassador Samantha Power said the United States did not agree with every provision but maintained that the resolution did not diminish the U.S. commitment to Israel's security.[21] The decision contrasted with February 2011, when the administration vetoed a similar draft that lacked language condemning terrorism and incitement.[2]

Netanyahu called Resolution 2334 “unbalanced,” “shameful,” and “very hostile to Israel.” He accused the administration of initiating and coordinating it, an allegation U.S. officials denied.[21] He also said that “friends do not take friends to the UN Security Council.”[22] Congress objected to the abstention, while assessments of the resolution ranged from largely symbolic to diplomatically consequential; its broader effects remained unclear.[2]

Obama began holding White House Passover seders after joining an improvised seder organized by Jewish campaign staff during a 2008 trip through Pennsylvania. When participants sang “Next year in the White House,” he replied, “We'll do it.” He later said he continued the tradition so his daughters would experience the Haggadah and the story of Passover.[23]

In a 2012 message, Obama linked the Exodus with the Jewish commitment to repairing the world and with the contributions of American Jews, while describing its themes as meaningful beyond the Jewish community.[24]

At a January 2016 Holocaust Remembrance Day forum, he recalled that his great-uncle helped liberate Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald, and returned so shaken that he reportedly did not speak to anyone for six months. Obama also recalled visiting Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel and taking his daughters to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.[12]

During his 2013 Jerusalem address, he praised Israel's combination of ancient history and technological achievement, remarking that only there could one see the Dead Sea Scrolls and the source of technology used aboard the Mars rover at the same time.[16]

Obama's domestic legacy includes the Affordable Care Act, economic-stimulus legislation, and financial reform. The administration reported that 16.4 million people gained health coverage during the first five years of the health-care law, although estimates of its longer-term coverage effects varied.[6]

His record toward Israel combined extensive security cooperation with deep political disagreement. The $38 billion memorandum announced in September 2016 set a record for a single U.S. military-assistance pledge and provided long-term Foreign Military Financing and missile-defense support.[3] Obama also repeatedly characterized the American commitment to Israel's security as unshakeable.[12]

The JCPOA remained one of his most disputed foreign-policy decisions. Obama argued that it constrained Iran's nuclear program, while Israeli leaders and American critics emphasized its time limits, sanctions relief, and failure to address Iran's regional conduct and terrorism sponsorship.[17] Resolution 2334 further strained relations during his final month in office, even as the military-assistance agreement signed that same year illustrated the complexity of his administration's relationship with Israel.[3][2]

Obama also oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden and received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.[1] His presidency therefore combined major domestic legislation, consequential national-security actions, and a Middle East record that remained sharply contested after he left office.

Dennis Ross's account of the administration, as discussed in the Jewish Review of Books, held that Obama entered office believing the United States should place more distance between itself and Israel. Ross said Obama declined a proposed Israel visit alongside his 2009 Cairo trip because he wanted Muslim audiences to see that his approach was different. Ross nevertheless described Obama as having “an instinctive commitment to Israel's security” and as consistently responding to Israel's security needs.[25]

A Sapir Journal author similarly acknowledged Obama's commitment to security assistance and intelligence cooperation but argued that secret U.S. talks with Iran conducted without prior notice to Israel constituted “a profound breach of trust.” That characterization is the author's evaluative judgment.[26]

Resolution 2334 produced an unresolved factual dispute. Netanyahu accused the administration of helping formulate the measure; U.S. officials denied doing so, and the cited sources do not independently establish the allegation.[21][22] Whether the abstention represented a betrayal of an ally or a final application of longstanding U.S. settlement policy remained politically contested.

A March 2013 poll reported by Globes found that 38 percent of Israelis considered Obama hostile to Israel and 14 percent considered him indifferent. The figures represented a snapshot taken before his presidential visit rather than a comprehensive judgment on his eight-year record.[27]