Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio is in west Delray Beach this afternoon to speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition and make what his campaign bills as a major speech on foreign policy and Israel.

About 300 people are at the South County Civic Center — twice the crowd Democratic Senate Kendrick Meek drew here last month in one of the county’s most Democratic areas.

See advance excerpts of Rubio’s speech after the jump….

Advance excerpts from Marco Rubio’s speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, as prepared for delivery:

The Obama Doctrine of appeasing our enemies, alienating our allies, and delegating our national security to the international community may have won President Obama a Nobel Peace Prize, but it has made the world a more volatile and dangerous place. This administration has turned its back on the decades-old post-World War II system of alliances that previous presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, built and nurtured. The result has been chaos. Today our allies look at America and the future of U.S. foreign policy as a proverbial jump ball, with unprecedented uncertainty about where America will stand. Israel is a particularly striking example of what is wrong with President Obama’s approach to foreign policy.

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Israel’s enemies have made war zones out of buses, cafes, malls, airplanes and even an Olympic village in Munich. No nation on Earth would be expected to accept such threats within their own borders. And so no nation has the right to demand Israel to do so either.

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Since 1948, the United States and Israel have been inextricably linked, religiously, spiritually and culturally. But we are also linked by our shared hope for a common destiny – to be enduring democracies, robust economies and freedom-loving, peace-seeking nations. Israel and the United States share exceptional values. They are the values that have made America the single greatest society in human history, and they are the values that make Israel a democratic and free market success story in the heart of a volatile Middle East. This is why, since Israel’s founding, Americans have been committed to not simply protect Israel’s right to exist, but to protect its right to thrive. Israel has had no better friend than America, and America has had no better friend than Israel.

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Support for Israel by the United States in a time of crisis has been a given for over 60 years. And yet, lately, there is the emerging sense that this long-standing relationship isn’t what it used to be. We are in the midst of an all out, concerted global effort to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. The recent flotilla incident and the reaction of many in the international community is nothing more than a part of that effort. In no way can the U.S. allow a path to be cleared that would enable the United Nations or any international body to discredit and diminish our democratic friend and partner. If Israel’s right to self-defense is undermined by efforts to lift its legal and necessary blockade of Gaza, which serves to stop Hamas from arming itself with deadly weapons, there will be lasting consequences not only for Israel, but also for the U.S. and the entire world.

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Israel’s enemies are or will soon be America’s enemies as well. They are emboldened every time they sense any sort of daylight between the United States and Israel. Now more than at any other time, it is important America have a firm and clear relationship with Israel.

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Finally, I want to focus on the single greatest threat to Israel, American interests in the region and the security of the entire world. It is a belligerent Iran with its nuclear program and aggressive support for terrorism. A nuclear Iran poses a grave threat to its neighbors and the world alike. Iran has been a leading state sponsor of global terrorism. It has funded and armed Hezbollah and Hamas. It has supported our enemies in Iraq with weapons that have killed and wounded American soldiers. U.S. troops have also uncovered Iranian-produced IED devices in Afghanistan. Its president has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and pledged to exterminate Israel. And in the aftermath of its recent election, the Iranian regime showed no restraint in unleashing its aggression on its own people, murdering peaceful demonstrators protesting an illegitimate election result.

Tags: Israel

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 3:43 pm and is filed under 2010 campaigns, George Bennett, Marco Rubio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.