Amb. Yoram Ettinger: America harbors a special “bottom-up” attitude towards Israel

The state of the US-Israel relationship must remain robust and strong, says Ambassador Yoram Ettinger, Former Minister for Congressional Affairs at Israel’s Embassy in DC.

Amb. Ettinger describes the evolution of the US-Israel relationship on Secure Freedom Radio:

“First and foremost, US-Israel relations constitute a very unique phenomenon in the area of international relations. Its unique because its bottom-up type of phenomena. Mainly it’s the American people that register their special attitude toward the Jewish state and toward Jewish values. They register it with their representatives in the House and the Senate and also in the White House. In reality, members of the House and the Senate perform that which their constituents instruct them to do. This special bottom-up attitude towards Israel goes back exactly 400 years to the Mayflower, which arrived at the North-eastern coast of contemporary America. The Mayflower arrived and the passengers considered themselves to be the modern day chosen people. They referred to England as modern-day Egypt and their voyage through the Atlantic as the modern-day parting of the sea. Therefore, the US today has thousands of sites bearing biblical names.”

Amb. Ettinger later describes the introduction of the Middle East peace plan, endorsed by both President Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu:

“To credit President Trump, he is the first president who apparently has realized that the US should not hold its initiatives hostage to the Palestinian issue. He is also the first president who has highlighted the independence of the US diplomatic action irrespective of the position of the UN, the Europeans or the third world. Thirdly, he has been a president who has recognized the very unique contribution by Israel to the US. These are expressed in the current peace plan which he submitted a few weeks ago in the form of recognizing the legality of Jewish settlements in the mountains of Judea and Samaria and the right of Israel to apply its law and sovereignty to certain parts of Judea and Samaria. The problem which I have detected in the Trump plan is the inclusion of that package of a potential Palestinian state. I am aware of a number of very important preconditions for Palestinians to have such a state but I also am aware of the fact that the interpretations of those preconditions are very subjective.”

Listen to the full interview here