Mr. Koch spoke of a half-hour meeting he had with the president in which "I said that I did not like -- I used strong language -- what he was doing with respect to Israel and I made it clear that I was not going to vote for him on that basis."

"And he was very distressed, thinking that the Jewish community, which I said he was taking for granted, was upset because he thought he was pleasing them with his statements," Mr. Koch continued.  "And I said, you know, Mr. President, when you said Israel should go back to the pre-’67 lines, I wouldn’t have gotten angry as I did get angry, even though I disagree with that because it makes Israel indefensible, no defensible lines.  But you didn’t, at the same time, demand that Hamas give up terrorism, that it recognize the state of Israel, and that if there were successful negotiations, recognize it as a Jewish state, and also end its charter, which says that every Jew who came to Palestine after 1917 must be expelled.  You didn’t say that.  And he said -- it was really interesting -- said, "I thought I did."  But the fact is that I have concluded, based on the speech that he made at the U.N. before I met with him, that he’s very supportive of the state of Israel, wants to see justice done, recognizes that they were there for 3,000 years.  It’s not just simply the Holocaust that brought them there.  And so I’m back on board the bus, as I said."

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