Upon his return from Washington, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made use of the Cabinet meeting Sunday to quote U.S. foreign affairs expert Walter Russell Mead, who wrote that “Israel is an American value.”
Mead, Editor-at-Large of The American Interest and former Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, also wrote that Netanyahu had “eviscerated” President Barack Obama in their latest match-up, and the fact that Netanyahu quoted him could be an indication of his own assessment of his Washington visit.
“They tell us all the time how we do not have any friends,” said Netanyahu. “We have friends. The American nation is a great and strong friend of the State of Israel. There are some who do not understand the strength of this connection… It does not stem – as more than a few people wrote during and after the visit – from this or that small segment. Neither does it stem solely from evangelist support. Jews and believing Christians do exist but the support, as very, very important commentators wrote, is much more sweeping, vis-à-vis the American people's solidarity with the State of Israel. Somebody wrote that, 'Israel is an American value,' and I think that there is much truth in this.”
“The American support is a very, very important asset for the State of Israel and I think that it is also important that the world sees this".
Netanyahu hinted that Israel could stay its course in spite of Obama’s pressure:
“We are in a process, a struggle, but there have been many important achievements because we have friends around the world, more than many think, and I am pleased to see that on various continents, in various meetings, they rebuffed matters that were not desirable to us".
