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PrintAbrams: U.S. must address Iran’s threat to Israel
(JTA) -- A former Bush administration official said he hopes the United States will address the Iranian president's threat to “wipe Israel off the map.”
“Israelis are living under the threat of annihilation every day," Elliot Abrams, the Bush administration's National Security Council senior director for Near East and North African Affairs, said April 25 at the Baltimore Zionist District’s "U.S.-Israel Relations In A New Era" symposium, the Baltimore Jewish Times reported. "If the world does not act, I believe Israel will act, and I hope the U.S. will.”
“We keep saying it’s unacceptable for Iran to have a bomb, but we don’t mean it. We mean it’s terrible, we don’t want it. But when Israel says it’s unacceptable, they mean it.”
Steve Rosen, director of the Middle East Forum’s Washington Project and a former top staffer at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, agreed with Abrams' assessment
“The majority of Americans support force on Iran, yet there’s a taboo against saying we must force them now,” Rosen said at the seminar. “The U.S. would be more efficient than Israel at suppressing Iran. We have to have the ability to stare directly into the light bulb.”
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