Oren: U.S.-Israel Ties “Closer than Any Time in the Last Two and a Half Years”

David Streeter — September 28, 2011 – 11:07 am | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told Tablet’s Lee Smith that “relations between the [United States and Israel] are closer than any time in the last two and a half years” during a pre-Rosh Hashanah interview.

Smith reported:

After a week at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, where he joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in pushing back against the Palestinians’ statehood bid, Israel’s ambassador to the United States is satisfied that 5772 will begin with the Jewish state as healthy as it has been in recent memory. Part of the reason for that, Michael Oren explained to me yesterday in his office in Washington, is that there is broad, bipartisan support for Israel in the United States-including robust support from the White House….Oren says that the White House and Netanyahu’s office closely coordinated their efforts to dissuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from making his unilateral bid for statehood, which the United States also sees as contrary to its national interests. 

And [emphasis Smith’s]:

I mentioned a recent poll, conducted by the American Jewish Committee, which found that among Jewish voters a plurality of 45 percent disapproved of how the White House has handled the Iranian nuclear issue. Oren said that those polled don’t understand what’s going on behind the scenes. ‘The administration’s policy has unfolded,’ he said. ‘First, it was the president believed an Iranian nuclear program was unacceptable, which morphed into Obama is determined to stop the nuclear program, which reflected substantive movement. Now the U.S. is ratcheting up sanctions. Our policy and the U.S.‘s is that all options are on the table-and we remain committed to that policy.’

 

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