In addressing Israel policy, Obama displays duality He told a pro-Israeli group the right things in a recent speech. But his acts tell another story.

Every time I have traveled to Israel, its military's message was clear: We either need high ground (occupied territories such as the Golan Heights) or high tech (sophisticated weapons).

Military sales and cooperation in developing military technology are vital to our relationship with Israel. The most important cooperative program is missile defense. The worry is not just short-range missiles from Hezbollah, but long-range missiles from Iran and beyond.

Obama, however, has called for the largest defense cuts since the Cold War. He has further stated he will "not weaponize space" and has called for an end to missile-defense development. Yet, at the AIPAC convention, he said: "We can enhance our cooperation on missile defense." Hmm.

His less than candid statements continued with his assertion that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." But he has refused to sponsor bills to this end in the Senate. And when CNN called him on this, he backtracked, saying that it was up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues and that Jerusalem would be part of those negotiations.

Should a foreign policy depend on whether you're addressing AIPAC or CNN?

Then there's the company Obama keeps. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s anti-American sound bites are tame in comparison to his anti-Zionist diatribes. Everyone knows Wright honored the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan with an award. Less known is that the bulletin of Obama's former church once featured an open letter from Palestinian Ali Baghdadi. "I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the white supremacists of South Africa," he wrote. "Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs."

In April, the Los Angeles Times reported on Obama's once close friendship with Rashid Khalidi, who has said that Palestinians who kill Israeli soldiers are engaged in legitimate resistance. The article quotes another American Palestinian intellectual, Hussein Ibish, as saying: "I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates."

Then there's Obama's cadre of senior foreign-policy advisers, including Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake from the pro-Palestinian Carter administration. It also included Robert Malley until last month, when this anti-Israeli academic was dismissed for having regular contact with Hamas.

The homeland at the center of the Obama team's Middle East story, it seems, is not Israel, but Palestine.

Contact Rick Santorum at rsantorum@phillynews.com.