Former Mossad Director Praises Obama for His “Leadership of Historic Dimensions”

Lauren Samet — September 14, 2011 – 1:44 pm | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

Monday night at the Israel Policy Forum’s symposium on “Security and the New Middle East,” Efraim Halevy, former Director of the Mossad, made it a point to digress from the discussion of Turkey and Egypt in order to express his sincere gratitude and respect for President Barack Obama’s skillful resolution of last week’s attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. 

Halevy’s comments on the “seminal event, not only in the history of the Middle East, but also in the history of the relations between Israel and Egypt, and between Israel and the United States of America” included the following:

[Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] turned to one man, to the President of the United States, and he spoke to him. And the president of the United States, without having much time to consult with Congress, and with the media, and with the analysts and with all of the other people who have to be consulted on major and grave decisions. He took a decision to take up the telephone and get on the line with the powers that be in Egypt, and get them to order the release of these six people, and the detail of the Egyptian commando forces entered and saved them.

I think that this decision by President Obama was a unique decision in many ways. Because I don’t have to tell you, and this was just said time and time and over again this afternoon/this evening, that the United States is not in a position the way it was many years ago in the Middle East, it has its problems, it has its considerations, and rightly so. But I believe the leadership that the President of the United States showed on that night was a leadership of historic dimensions. It was he who took the ultimate decision that night which prevented what could have been a sad outcome-instead of six men coming home, the arrival in Israel of six body bags.

And I want to say to you very openly and very clearly that had there been six body bags, there would have been a much different Israel today than we have been used to seeing over recent years. This would not have been one more incident, one more operation, one event. And the man who brought this about was one man and that was President Barack Hussein Obama.

And I believe it is our duty as Israelis, as citizens of the free world, to say, not simply thank you President Obama, but also we respect you for the way and the manner in which you took this decision.

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