Krauthammer: Obama ‘Has Less Personal Sympathy for Israel’ Than Any President

Columnist Charles Krauthammer declared that President Obama “has less personal sympathy for Israel” than any president in Israel’s history on Friday’s “Kelly File” on the Fox News Channel.

“I think this president has less personal sympathy for Israel than any president in the history, the near 70 year history of Israel, and I think it shows. I mean, look at the way he’s treated Netanyahu. Early in the administration, long before any of this, he had Netanyahu leave the White House by a rear entrance, the way that they have reacted whenever there’s been some kind of argument over policy, they immediately have made it a personal issue. And I think that’s — when you allow that to intrude — remember, the mission that a president has is to defend and advance the national interests of the United States. And when it becomes a personal thing, that gets in the way. Israel is our strongest ally in the region, democratic and committed to the West. Iran has been responsible the deaths of thousands of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. The State Department itself says it’s the largest, the biggest exporter of terrorism in the world and Obama treats their leadership with utmost respect, and treats Israel, our ally, with none” he said. And “what’s astonishing is how personal and petulant is the administration response reducing this to a kind of schoolyard brawl.”

Krauthammer also pointed out “the Prime Minister of Britain was here in the United States and admitted openly to lobbying senators on the nuclear issue. And he even admitted that it’s unprecedented. So, on the one hand you get the administration using foreign leaders to lobby Congress, and on the other hand you’re saying that it’s somehow [an] illegitimate lack of protocol to invite the Israeli Prime Minister.”

He “the ones who are the most apoplectic about the rise of Iran, the fact that it looks as if Obama is ready to concede to them threshold nuclear status, are the Gulf Arabs. The Arabs have no deterrent, the Israelis at least have their own bomb. The Gulf Arabs are very rich and extremely weak. They have rely, and have for two generations, on the United States. They not only see Obama essentially conceding the bomb to Iran, which will make it dominant and hegemonic in the entire region, but they look around and see Iranian influence intruding itself in a whole stretch of states, going all the way from Iran to the Mediterranean.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett