World leaders aren’t the only ones celebrating Barack Obama’s victory in last week’s presidential election; a number of international students at Binghamton University say they have high hopes for the president-elect as well.

Foreign leaders, such as Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as well as students at BU, said they hope Obama will be able to increase and strengthen the diplomatic ties of the United States.

Aaron Sebag, spokesman and co-founder of the Binghamton University Zionist Organization (BUZO) said he believed Obama will be a good president in terms of dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict. A registered Republican, Sebag voted for Obama, though he felt that both candidates took a strong position toward Israel.

“He has taken a strong pro-Israel tone and he seems to have a strong commitment to Israel’s security,” he said.

While various exit polls from the election have shown that President-elect Obama received around 75 percent of the Jewish vote, according to a survey from The Associated Press, Americans in Jerusalem cast absentee ballots for McCain over Obama by a margin of nearly 3-to-1.

“Israeli’s are very concerned with issues of security and many feel that Obama may have been inexperienced,” Sebag said. “It’s funny how the American-Jewish vote is in contrast with those in Israel; it definitely shows you something.”

The BUZO was formed last spring in order to “defend the intentions of Israel and speak out against slanderous comments designed to distort the intentions of Israel,” Sebag said.

Lola Omoge Oloko, a senior and president of the African Student Organization, was born in Nigeria and supported Obama prior to the election. The ASO, according to Oloko, is a haven for African students, where both national and international issues can be related to one another. As a group, the ASO did not focus on one candidate, but discussed the merits and policies of both.

“We tried not to have a meeting to focus on one candidate, but we spoke about things like tax cuts and abortion,” Oloko said.

She added that what attracted her to Obama was his pro-choice views.

According to a BBC World Service Poll taken on Sept. 9, Obama was preferred to McCain across 22 nations, including France, Australia and Kenya. The scope of favor ranged from 9 percent in India to 82 percent in Kenya, and on average Obama was favored 49 percent to McCain’s 12 percent.

Other countries can associate with Obama because his presence isn’t just in the United States, Oloko said. According to Oloko, Obama is a more worldly candidate than McCain.

“It’s [the election] definitely something that’s caught the whole world by storm,” she said.