Report: Obama gets invitation to Maryland country club after rift over his Israel policies
Former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have been invited to join an exclusive country club in Maryland despite a disagreement among members about whether to let them in because of his administration’s Israel policy, The New York Times reports.
The Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland, many of whose members are Jewish, invited the former first couple in a letter Monday, the report said, which said they could become “special members.”
“In the current deeply polarized political environment,” Barry Forman, the club’s president, wrote, “it is all the more important that Woodmont be a place where people of varying views and beliefs can enjoy fellowship and recreation in a relaxed environment.”
“Given our legacy,” he added, “it is regrettable that we have now been portrayed as unwelcoming and intolerant, because that is not who we are.”
The report said that a vocal minority at the club opposed the idea of Obama joining because of his record clashing with the Israeli government, including his administration’s decision to abstain in December during the vote on the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
One member, Faith Goldstein, wrote to Forman, according to The Washington Post, saying that Obama “has created a situation in which Israel’s very existence is weakened and possibly threatened.”
“He is not welcome at Woodmont,” she reportedly wrote.
As special members of the club, the former first couple doesn’t have to pay the $80,000 initiation fee, but must pay dues and other fees, the Times said.
The former first family is currently on vacation in Palm Springs, California and is expected to return to Washington and live in the posh Kalorama neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant.
