Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Thursday with former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who visited Tel Aviv along with her husband to participate in the right-wing Israel Hayom forum.
“The entire people of Israel appreciate the extraordinary way that you represented our alliance between America and Israel and the way you defended Israel and the truth in the UN,” Netanyahu told Haley, as reported by local media.
She responded by saying that relations between her country and Israel were everlasting.
Meanwhile, Michael Oren, an Israeli diplomat and historian, called for better exploiting the era of US President Donald Trump to achieve Israeli gains in several areas, mainly the issue of Iran, the Palestinian cause, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas.
“Trump is the best US president in understanding Israel’s needs and place in the Western world,” said Oren, who served as deputy foreign minister in the Netanyahu government until a year ago.
“He will remain in power for five and a half years, perhaps only a year and a half, and Israel must better exploit this era of history,” he added.
When asked to give details, Oren said: “Hezbollah has a huge stock of missiles, perhaps 130,000, stored inside houses in 200 Lebanese villages. We can only defeat them with a fierce ground war, and we will need huge quantities of ammunition. Do you think that we will get it if the US president was Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren? (Two Democratic presidential candidates). If we enter into a war with Hamas, the world will come against us. We must ensure that America stands with us fully.”
He continued: “Today, we are confronting Iran together with the United States, and we see how the US position develops with the Palestinians. We must strive to get more gains.”
