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.
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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.
