Israeli intelligence saves American lives, said United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman in a Tuesday-published interview with Mark Levin on the latter’s eponymous radio show.
Levin invited Friedman’s assessment of the status quo of U.S. military aid to Israel.
“We get an enormous amount of benefit from Israel,” said Friedman. “First of all, take the simplest thing: the state of Israel, the Israeli intelligence services have directly — through their cooperation with our Department of Homeland Security — caused either the prior arrest or the interdiction — or prevented — of numerous terrorist attacks on our homeland.”
Friedman added, “So more people are alive today in America because of the state of Israel. That ought to be enough, but there’s much more than that. The Israeli intel — the Mossad, the Shin Bet, the IDF intelligence — cooperates with the United States frankly, like, I’m not aware of any other country in terms of what they share with the United States.”
“They have eyes on our enemies, in some respects, better than we do, and they share it with us and they keep us safe,” stated Friedman.
Unlike Germany and other European states, Korea, and Qatar — where U.S. soldiers are stationed in the tens of thousands — Friedman highlighted Israel’s self-reliance on its own military servicepersons. U.S. forces are also stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Japan.
“People talk about the $3.8 billion in military funding that we give Israel every year,” began Friedman, “it’s a fraction compared to the investment we have in bases in Germany, in Korea, in Qatar throughout the world, and the difference between all those bases and Israel? We don’t put a single soldier’s life at risk in Israel. So we get all the benefits of having a forward position in the Middle East in Israel without a single soldier’s life being at risk.”
President Donald Trump broke ranks with his predecessors, determined Friedman, on his stated commitment to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Avid to Jerusalem. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama had all reneged on the same promise.
“He was elected because he wasn’t a politician,” assessed Friedman of Donald Trump. “Obama, Bush, Clinton, they could all make promises, and nobody expected them to keep them, because that’s part of what it means to run for president. President Trump, I think people were electing him because they expected hi to keep his promises. “
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