Barack Obama visits Israel's Holocaust museum
Barack Obama paid a solemn visit this morning to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, laying a white flower wreath on a memorial to Jews killed by the Nazis.
“Let our children come here and know this history so they can add their voices to proclaim never again,” Obama wrote in the Jerusalem museum’s guest book.
Obama’s second visit to the museum — his first was in 2006 — came after he met privately with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the leader of the Labor Party, and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party. Both are former prime ministers.
This afternoon, Obama will travel to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leaders, then fly by helicopter to the southern Israeli town of Sderot, the target of frequent Palestinian rocket attacks fired from the Gaza Strip.
At the Jerusalem museum, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president wore a yarmulke for a brief ceremony before a flame commemorating those who died in Treblinka, Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps. Obama laid the wreath on a stone slab that covers the ashes of Holocaust victims.
--Michael Finnegan
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
Subscribe to this Blog
yes, never again NOT to proclaim, whenever and wherever injustice and unrighteousness arise, this is the noble right and responsibility of all free people.
Posted by: dave | July 23, 2008 at 05:06 AM
although there is a museam there, this is first and formost a memorial, not a museum.
when you refer to Yad Vashem, it is the Holocaust Memorial,
big difference.
Posted by: radman | July 23, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Unlike the far left elitist Obama supporters, Israel's first, second, and third priority is mere survival. The Israelis can not afford to place all their trust in the empty rhetoric of Obama, because if he flip flops with Israel, it could easily result in the destruction of Israel and all of her people. Obama's main supporters in America are a bunch of immature young people, with no life experience, or wisdom ... or, people who are so committed to electing the first black president, that his credentials, experience and competence are their secondary considerations ... if those traits are considerations at all.
Posted by: Howard | July 23, 2008 at 01:14 PM