Former Envoy: Israel Will Be U.S.’ Most Important Ally in 21st Century

Israel will be the United States’ most important ally this century, Israel’s new Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said on Tuesday.

“Israel will be the most important ally of the United States in the 21st century,” Dermer, who served as Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. until 2021, said at an event in Miami.

“Just as Britain was the [U.S.’] most important ally in the 20th century, Israel [will become] the most important ally in the 21st century,” Dermer said in remarks carried by The Jerusalem Post.

Dermer outlined three priorities for his ministry, which was resurrected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it was closed by the previous government, namely, the Iranian threat, the Abraham Accords normalizing peace between Israel and Arab countries, and Israel’s relationship with the U.S. The Strategic Affairs ministry will no longer deal with the boycott-Israel movement as it had in its previous incarnation.

The ministry’s first priority will focus on stopping the “evil” regime in Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, Dermer said.

“The second priority is to see if we can expand the circle of peace,” he said.

He noted the Trump administration and its “great ambassador” to Israel, David Friedman, “really deserve a great round of applause” for brokering the normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

“In 2020, after only having two peace agreements in 72 years, we were able to achieve this in the span of four or five months,” Dermer said.

In a swipe at the Biden administration, Dermer continued, “unfortunately, for the last two years, that circle of peace has not expanded,” and added that “Prime Minister Netanyahu is determined to expand it.”

But he went on by sharing his hope “to work very closely with the Biden administration” on the matter.

“The policy towards Iran is a critical part of expanding [the peace agreements] because I think it opens the space for Arab leaders to move into a public alliance with Israel when we face this common enemy together.”

The ministry’s third priority is to “significantly upgrade the bilateral ties that we have with the United States of America,” Dermer said.

The Biden administration this week officially acknowledged that a return to the 2015 Obama-led nuclear deal with Iran is no longer on the agenda, and the Iranians are to blame for “killing the prospect,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price said.

Price also said the U.S. and Israel are in lockstep about preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and indicated that the administration is open to discussing military action to achieve that goal.

When U.S. officials meet with “our Israeli partners, one of the many issues we discuss is the most – the various means by which we can see to it that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon,” Price added.

The announcement comes after months of stalled negotiations as Iran continued to enrich uranium dangerously close to a level that is weapons-grade.