This article originally appeared at the Jerusalem Post.

The Republican pick for vice president, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, is “one of the best friends the State of Israel and the Jewish people have ever had,” according to Pence’s long-time friend and unofficial surrogate, Tom Rose, who was also the publisher of The Jerusalem Post in the early 2000s.

Rose spoke to the Post on Wednesday, wishing to counter recent reports stating that Pence would be a bad choice for the Jewish community.

In a piece published by Haaretz last week, Indianapolis Rabbi Dennis Sasso wrote that “Indiana Jews have long been repelled by Mike Pence’s anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, anti-choice stances.”

According to Sasso, while he is a “pleasant and amiable person,” and has shown support for Israel by signing an anti- BDS bill into law this year, Pence has “countered the very foundations of religious and moral values he purports to advance.”

Rose, who describes Pence as his “closest personal friend for over 25 years,” told the Post that Sasso’s effort to “smear and defame one of the best friends the State of Israel and the Jewish people have ever had” should be called out.

“This is an attempt to rob a good and decent man of his most valuable possession, an attempt to rob him of his good name,” Rose said. “A world in which good people are called bad and bad people are called good, that’s a world that’s lost its moral bearing.”

Read the full story at the Jerusalem Post.