Obama to award Medal of Freedom to Israeli president

Israel President Shimon PeresShimon Peres has reached the United States on a four day official visit where he is to be awarded with the Medal of Freedom by his counterpart Barack ObamaBarack Obama in an investiture ceremony. Shimon Peres is also expected to raise a host of issues with President Obama including the controversial nuclear program of Iran and fate of a convicted Israeli spy. The United States and Israel have got deep relationship and mutual respect for each other. Perhaps, the deep friendship between both the countries may be the reason behind the awarding of the prestigious award.

By the way, what is the Medal of Freedom? The medal is awarded to dignitaries across the globe by President of the United States for their contribution in the following three sectors.

1. The individual may have contributed to the security or national interests of the United States.

2. He/ She may have struggled hard to establish world peace

3. The individual should have cultural or some other significant public or private ventures

The individuals are either selected by the president himself or they are recommended to him for the award by the Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board. According to statistics available on Wikipedia website, President Bill ClintonBill Clinton awarded 88 medals while President George W Bush awarded 81 medals among the meritorious individuals. President Barack Obama will be awarding the 32nd medal to his Israeli counterpart on Wednesday.

It is widely reported that President Shimon Peres is also carrying a sign petition with him to be presented before Barack Obama as a plea to get an Israeli convicted spy Jonathan PollardJonathan Pollard released. The issue will be raise on humanitarian grounds and it is yet to be seen what will be response of President Obama towards the petition. Israeli president is also scheduled to have detailed meetings with Defense Secretary Leon PanettaLeon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss different issues of bilateral interests.

Upon his arrival at Blair House, the US president?s official guest house, Israeli president spoke to media and said Israel is perturbed over repeated failure of talks of the international community with Iran. He said the issue will be raised with President Obama during the meeting. Israel is frustrated with Iran as the latter does not appear to budge on the nuclear program. It may be pertinent to mention here that Israel has been pushing the United States for the last couple of years to attack nuclear sites of Iran. Israel deems there is no other way to get the nuclear enrichment program of Iran halted but a military operation.

Observers believe that it could be a political gimmick on part of President Obama to award the Israeli president to garner the Jewish vote. Let?s see how the Jewish community living in the United States responds to the Medal of Freedom being awarded to Shimon Peres.

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