US President Barack Obama speaks at the funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres on September 30. Photo: YouTube screenshot.

JNS.org — The head of a major Jewish organization rebuked the White House for crossing out “Israel” from the heading of a transcript of US President Barack Obama’s eulogy at elder statesman Shimon Peres’ funeral on September 30, after an initial press release cited “Jerusalem, Israel” as the location of the speech.

In a statement on Wednesday, the head of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) expressed outrage over the action.

“Mount Herzl cemetery is located in the western part of Jerusalem – an area that has been part of the state of Israel since the nation’s rebirth,” ZOA President Morton A. Klein wrote. “The Obama administration’s ‘corrected’ release excising Jerusalem, and especially Mount Herzl [where Peres was buried], from Israel, is simply wrong and hurtful,” Klein wrote.

Klein also noted similar instances in which the Obama administration went to “extreme lengths to obliterate the reality of Israel’s rights and sovereignty,” including the State Department’s refusal to allow “Israel” to be listed on the US passports of American citizens born in Jerusalem, and its omission of the Jewish and/or Israeli identity of American victims of Palestinian terrorism from official condolence letters, as well as failing to name the Israeli locations of the attacks in which they were killed.