U.S. Sen. John McCain, was remembered by Israeli leaders and Jewish organizations as a true friend of Israel and a man of principles following his death from brain cancer at the age of 81, Saturday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eulogized him, saying "I am deeply saddened by the passing of John McCain, a great American patriot and a great supporter of Israel. I will always treasure the constant friendship he showed to the people of Israel and to me personally."
"His support for Israel never wavered. It sprang from his belief in democracy and freedom. The State of Israel salutes John McCain," Netanyahu said.
"We bid farewell to a great leader," President Reuven Rivlin said, "a defender of his people, a man of strong values, and a true supporter of Israel. My heartfelt condolences to his family and all the American people."
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni called McCain a "lover of Israel who believed in its righteousness and always supported its security." Israel owed McCain a great debt of thanks, she said.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called McCain "a true patriot and a true friend of Israel, may he rest in peace."
Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid called McCain an "American patriot"
and "A soldier with integrity in a world of politicians. May his memory be a blessing."
American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said, "A passionate advocate for American global leadership, Senator McCain rightly bemoaned those who favored a U.S. pullback from world affairs."
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee noted that throughout his congressional career, McCain "stood with Israel because throughout his life he stood up for America's allies and our shared democratic values." The pro-Israel lobby lauded McCain as having been "an extraordinarily courageous defender of liberty."
The director of the Reform Judaism movement's Religious Action Center Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner called McCain was "a tireless champion of the issues and principles that he held dear, from reforming the broken campaign finance system, to the effort to bar the use of torture by U.S. authorities, to his pivotal vote just last year to save the Affordable Care Act."
"We were honored to work with him and when we engaged him around areas of disagreement, Sen. McCain was always honest and straightforward," he said.
McCain first visited Israel in the late 1970s with Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Washington state Democrat who led a campaign to pressure the administrations of both Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to press the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate.
He was elected to the Senate from Arizona six times but was twice thwarted in seeking the presidency.
While in the Senate, McCain formed a close friendship with Joe Lieberman, a Democratic senator from Connecticut. Together, the two would make numerous trips to Israel.
McCain was also a vocal opponent of the Iran nuclear deal.
The scion of a decorated military family, McCain embraced his role as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushing for aggressive U.S. military intervention overseas and eager to contribute to "defeating the forces of radical Islam that want to destroy America."
John Sidney McCain III was born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was stationed in the military.
He followed his father and grandfather, the Navy's first father-and-son set of four-star admirals, to the Naval Academy, where he enrolled in what he described a "four-year course of insubordination and rebellion." His family yawned at the performance. A predilection for what McCain described as "quick tempers, adventurous spirits, and love for the country's uniform" was encoded in his family DNA.
On October 1967, McCain was on his 23rd bombing round over North Vietnam when he was shot out of the sky and taken prisoner.
Year upon year of solitary confinement, deprivation, beatings and other acts of torture left McCain in such despair that at one point he weakly attempted suicide. But he also later wrote that his captors had spared him the worst of the abuse inflicted on POWs because his father was a famous admiral. "I knew that my father's identity was directly related to my survival," he wrote in one of his books.
When McCain's Vietnamese captors offered him early release as a propaganda ploy, McCain refused to play along, insisting that those captured first should be the first set free.
McCain returned home from his years as a POW on crutches and never regained full mobility in his arms and leg.
He once said he'd "never known a prisoner of war who felt he could fully explain the experience to anyone who had not shared it." Still, he described the time as formative and "a bit of a turning point in me appreciating the value of serving a cause greater than your self-interest."
In 1982, McCain was elected to the House of Representatives and four years later to an open Senate seat. He and Cindy had four children, to add to three from his first marriage. Their youngest was adopted from Bangladesh.
His experience as a POW made him a leading voice against the use of torture, even in the recalibrations of the post-9/11 world. McCain said the issue wasn't "about our enemies. It's about us. It's about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It's about how we represent ourselves to the world."
During his final years in the Senate, McCain was perhaps the loudest advocate for U.S. military involvement overseas – in Iraq, Syria, Libya and more. That often made him a critic of first Obama and then Trump, and placed him further out of step with the growing isolationism within the GOP.
Few politicians matched McCain's success as an author. His 1999 release "Faith of My Fathers" sold millions and was highly praised. The book also helped launch his run for president in 2000. His most recent bestseller and planned farewell, "The Restless Wave," came out in May 2018.
Trump, who once criticized McCain for being taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, took to Twitter to send his "deepest sympathies and respect" to McCain's family. "Our hearts and prayers are with you!" First lady Melania Trump said, "Our thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathy to the McCain family. Thank you, Senator McCain, for your service to the nation."
Former presidents, including those who blocked McCain's own White House ambitions, offered emotional tributes.
Obama, who triumphed over McCain in the 2008 election, said that despite their differences, McCain and he shared a "fidelity to something higher – the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed."
Obama said the two political opponents "saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world."
Former U.S. President George W. Bush, who defeated McCain for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, called his one-time political rival "man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order" and a "friend whom I'll deeply miss."
Bush was among those expected to speak at McCain's funeral, likely to be held this week.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who developed a friendship with McCain while they served together in the Senate, said the Arizona lawmaker will "cast a long shadow."
"The spirit that drove him was never extinguished: we are here to commit ourselves to something bigger than ourselves," Biden said.
McCain is expected to be remembered in Arizona and Washington before being buried, at the Naval Academy Cemetery in Maryland.
Other plans were taking shape, too. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that he wants to name the Senate building that housed McCain's suite of offices after the Arizona senator, who served as chairman of the Commerce Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"As you go through life, you meet few truly great people. John McCain was one of them," Schumer said. "Maybe most of all, he was a truth teller – never afraid to speak truth to power in an era where that has become all too rare."
