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Fears of Lasting Rift as Obama Battles Pro-Israel Group on Iran

US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-SCHUMER

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVISAUG. 7, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Obama had a tough message for theAmerican Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, the powerful pro-Israel group that is furiously campaigning against the Iran nuclear accord, when he met with two of its leaders at the White House this week. The president accused Aipac of spending millions of dollars in advertising against the deal and spreading false claims about it, people in the meeting recalled.

So Mr. Obama told the Aipac leaders that he intended to hit back hard.

The next day in a speech at American University, Mr. Obama denounced the deal’s opponents as “lobbyists” doling out millions of dollars to trumpet the same hawkish rhetoric that had led the United States into war with Iraq. The president never mentioned Aipac by name, but his target was unmistakable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/world/middleeast/fears-of-lasting-rift-as-obama-battles-pro-israel-group-on-iran.html