Israel ‘our indispensable ally’ in war on Islamic terror, says Paul Ryan on visit to Jerusalem

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Times of Israel:

House Speaker calls for ‘generational strategy’ to win over hearts and minds in the Muslim world; warns Iran will make supporters ‘rue the day’ they backed the nuclear deal; says nobody should try to force Israel ‘into an insecure position’

David Horovitz

April 4 2016

 

Paul Ryan — Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mitt Romney’s 2012 running mate, and the Republican Who Didn’t Run for the Presidency this time — broadly holds to the principle of not being too critical of the US government when traveling abroad. But his very decision to come to Israel on Sunday and Monday — on the first days, that is, of his first foreign trip since taking the Speaker’s job last October — is an implied rebuke to President Barack Obama, and an overt reassertion of American solidarity with Israel.

 

Talking to The Times of Israel from the balcony of his Jerusalem hotel room, Ryan’s first order of business is to make clear that he very deliberately chose to visit Israel now so as “to reinforce our alliance” and to underline his conviction that the US-Israel partnership should and will grow stronger in the future.

 

The 46-year-old father of three from Wisconsin, who was last in Israel late in Ariel Sharon’s prime ministership in 2005, emphatically endorses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s view that Palestinian terrorism directed against Israel is ultimately no different from the Islamic terror afflicting Europe and threatening the United States, and that the civilized world must unite to fight it. “They’re coming at Israel but they’re ultimately coming for us,” he says. “So we are partners in this war on terror, radical Islamic terrorism. Israel is an indispensable ally in that. Israel is on the front line in so many ways with respect to it.”

 

(Snip)

 

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