Obama pledged to safeguard Israel’s security, but most Israelis view the promises as empty, says Elliot Abrams, a former senior foreign policy advisor for US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
US President Obama (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
US President Barack Obama made pledges to protect Israel’s security on Sunday in a New York Times interview, but a former senior US advisor explains why the Israelis are not reassured.
Former US Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations, were he serves as senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies, says that “it is hard to believe that many Israelis will be reassured by the interview, especially not if they read the Iranian press and see what, in their own interviews, Iranian officials are claiming they got out of the new nuclear agreement.”
He claims that Obama’s declarations are basically meaningless and of no substance.
“What we will be doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there,” said Obama in the interview.
“What does ‘messes with Israel’ mean? No one has the slightest idea,” Abrams responds. “The president unfortunately uses this kind of diction too often, dumbing down his rhetoric for some reason and leaving listeners confused.”
“Iran is sending arms and money to Hamas in Gaza, and has done so for years. Is that ‘messing with Israel?'” he asks. Iran has blown up several Israeli embassies, he continues. Iranian Revolutionary Guards, along with Hezbollah troops, are in southern Syria near the Golan.
“And what does the President mean by ‘America will be there?’ With arms? With bandages? With the diplomatic protection his administration is now considering removing at the United Nations?” Abrams adds.
“But the deeper problem is that the reassurances the president is offering to Israel…are simply not reassuring,” he states. “Iran is already, right now, while under sanctions that are badly hurting its economy, spending vast amounts of money and effort to ‘mess with Israel.’ This administration’s reaction has been to seek a nuclear deal that will give Iran more economic resources to dedicate to its hatred and violence against Israel, but will in no way whatsoever limit Iran’s conventional weapons and its support for terrorism.”
“The words he used are sufficiently vague to undermine their value as well,” Abrams asserts.
By: United with Israel Staff
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