What most worries Ofir Akunis, Israel’s Consul General in New York, is not the uncertainty surrounding the war with Iran, nor the other bouts of turmoil and conflict ravaging the Middle East—it’s a drift in American politics he warns could one day spell the end of a historic alliance.
Citing recent electoral victories by progressive Democratic Party candidates critical of Israel and U.S. intervention abroad, Akunis argued that “the reality is that some people here, for sure, prefer the ayatollahs rather than the American administration.”
“You can hate your president, you can love your president, you can ignore him, you can want to change the administration,” Akunis told Newsweek. “All of this is within the frame of the democratic game. But to prefer your enemies rather than your political opponents, this is something new.”
While the diplomat said it was his “hope that the United States of America will always be with us,” he said Israel will need to prepare to be more independent given the trends he was witnessing.
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