Israel’s military actions in the early 1980s greatly unsettled Ronald Reagan, diary entries by the late U.S. president revealed. Vanity Fair published excerpts this week of a daily journal in which Reagan mused on everything from Hollywood films to Washington’s foreign policy. The tactics of then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin appear to have been especially unsettling for Reagan, a devout Christian.
“Got word of Israel bombing of Iraq — nuclear reactor,” he wrote in response to the 1981 airstrike on Osirak. “I swear I believe Armageddon is near.” But he added, “We are not turning on Israel — that would be an invitation for the Arabs to attack.”
A year later, Reagan called Begin to complain about Israel’s war on Palestinian terrorists in Lebanon and the civilian toll it exacted.
“I was angry — I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered,” Reagan wrote. “I used the word holocaust deliberately and said the symbol of war was becoming a picture of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off.”
Reagan is remembered as one of Israel’s closest friends in Washington.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
