The United States has become ‘almost adversarial’ towards Israel under the Obama administration, according to Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ).
Speaking to Arutz Sheva at a Washington D.C. security conference, Franks contradicted a recent claim by Israel’s ambassador to the US that US Secretary of State John Kerry wasn’t threatening Israel when he warned of boycotts in the event that current negotiations with the Palestinian Authority fall through. The conference, entitled “American Security and the Iranian Bomb: Analyzing Threats at Home and Abroad,” saw several prominent members of Congress and former CIA Director James Woolsey discuss the threat posed to the US by the Islamic Republic.
Congressman Franks said that Kerry’s boycott remarks sounded like “a veiled threat”, and expressed his “outrage” over what he saw as the White House’s backwards foreign policy in the Middle East.
Last year’s P5+1 agreement with Iran over the latter’s illegal nuclear program was “fatally flawed,” he said, noting that it contradicted previous UN Security Council resolutions calling for the total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, and signaled the US had even given up on containing – let alone thwarting – Tehran’s nuclear designs by allowing uranium enrichment to continue.
On the other hand, the US’s longest-standing ally in the region was having to face an “adversarial” Obama administration.
“It’s outrageous that this administration has become the chief lobbyist for Iran and has now extended them the ability to have a protected protocol going forward to be able to enrich uranium,” he told Arutz Sheva.
“And yet our best friend on the planet, our most dedicated and committed ally in the world, Israel, they’re having to be the object of these veiled threats… it’s an outrageous thing.”
Nevertheless, he said he remained relatively positive that Israel “is still the toughest kid on the block,” and stressed that “they still have a big friend here that’s got the stars and stripes on our shoulders and we’re never going to turn our back on them.”
Turning to the Israel-PA negotiations themselves, Franks maintained that a fundamental shift in paradigm was needed in US foreign policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, and said that in his opinion Israel should not be forced to give up any more territory.
“If US focuses on truth and justice we’ll realize that Israel has been there for 3,000 years – the same language, the same people, the same culture for 3,000 years – and it’s always astonishing to me that we somehow now think that they’re the occupiers.”
