US: Former President Obama's memoir on shelves Tuesday

ANKARA

Former US President Barack Obama's memoir, "A Promised Land," will hit the shelves on Tuesday, which includes hot topics from the raid on Osama bin Laden to Israeli lobby in Washington D.C.

The book covers Obama's early political life from Chicago to his rise to the White House and his personal life, and includes the killing of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11 attacks.

Obama's then vice-president Joe Biden, who is now President-elect, had suggested him to wait before ordering the 2011 mission that killed the al-Qaida leader, according to the memoir.

During the discussion on the night of May 1-2, 2011 mission, Biden had told Obama "Don’t go," but also said "Follow your instincts," since he was worried about the possible consequences of risk of failing the mission and its potential impact on the war in Afghanistan.

"Joe weighed in against the raid," Obama said in his memoir, and added "As had been true in every major decision I’d made as president, I appreciated Joe’s willingness to buck the prevailing mood and ask tough questions, often in the interest of giving me the space I needed for my own internal deliberations."

Obama, in his book, also wrote about how US politicians who criticized Israel's policy "too loudly" have the risk of "being tagged" as anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) -- a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress.

"As far as AIPAC board members were concerned, I remained suspect, a man of divided loyalties," Obama wrote.

He also explained how some Democrats in the Congress were afraid of losing their donors and hurting their re-election chances because of supporting Palestinian statehood, since it would cost them losing AIPAC's support.

About Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama wrote he would "justify almost anything that would keep him in power."