Pompeo: I’m convinced Bennett will do the right things

Pompeo praises Bennett but acknowledges he could have trouble keeping his coalition together.

ARUTZ SHEVA

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in a conversation on Thursday with All Israel News founder Joel Rosenberg.

At the same time, Pompeo also noted the enormous challenge Bennett faces with a fragile coalition and a one-seat majority in the Israeli government.

Pompeo noted told Rosenberg in the interview, which took place at the National Religious Broadcaster convention in Dallas, that the transition from former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t be starkly different from Bennett’s leadership because he has similar politics to his predecessor.

“Mr. Bennett, I’m convinced, has the Israeli people at his heart that he will do the right things on security issues,” Pompeo said, adding, “But he has a tough job, as he is managing an unruly coalition that really united around ‘anybody but Netanyahu.’”

Pompeo was positive about the new Israeli government, though he expressed concern that Bennett will have issues keeping his coalition together since it was built on the comment theme of ousting Netanyahu and is presiding over eight parties ranging from far right to far left.

“I pray that they get it right…for Israel and for the Jewish people,” Pompeo told Rosenberg.

The former Secretary of State is a staunch supporter of Israel during his time in office and was in office during the negotiation of the Abraham Accords which saw Israel normalizing relations with a number of Arab countries.

Pompeo is seen as a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate.

Recently, he blamed the Biden administration for the ongoing Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket fire on Israel.

“Biden delayed his call with Israeli leadership and restarted funding to the Palestinian Authority through the UN — both signal to Hamas & terrorists in the West Bank that America places less value on our relationship with Israel. It matters who leads,” Pompeo tweeted.

Earlier this week, Pompeo excoriated Iran’s president-elect Ebrahim Raisi, and urged the Biden administration not to negotiate with the incoming Iranian government.

Pompeo added that the US must maintain its sanctions regime on Tehran to force the Iranian government to “change its behavior”, without specifically referencing the country’s nuclear program.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)

June 26, 2021 | 3 Comments »

Leave a Reply

3 Comments / 3 Comments

  1. From today’s Arutz Sheva:

    Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked: Citizenship Law will be voted on as-is
    Interior Minister warns that Supreme Court could strike law down entirely if it fails to pass in Knesset.
    Tags: Family Reunification Ayelet Shaked Basic Law
    Hezki Baruch , Jun 27 , 2021 12:30 PM
    Share

    Approached for comment on her way into Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked insisted that the government intends to bring the Citizenship Law (aka Family Reunification Law) to a vote with its language unaltered, despite threats from opposition parties that it will oppose the law and block its passage.

    “The Citizenship Law will come up for a vote this week in its current language with no alterations,” Shaked told Arutz Sheva. “I hope that the opposition will come to its senses and stop all the spins that come at the expense of the State. The Basic Law for Population cannot replace the Citizenship Law – not according to the current timetable and not from the perspective of its content either. If the [opposition parties] do not want to grant citizenship to fifteen thousand Palestinians immediately, they must either abstain or vote in favor of the law. Never in the past have opposition parties from the nationalist right wing voted against this law,” she stressed.

    Shaked was asked what would happen if the opposition parties held fast to their threats and the law failed to pass, and insisted that if that were to happen, the government would bring it for an additional vote, as many times as needed until it did muster the necessary majority.

    “However,” she warned, “if the law does fail to pass even on its first reading, it could have critical, even devastating consequences. On two occasions already during the past 18 years, we managed to eke out a one-vote majority on the Supreme Court approving this law. If the law fails to pass in the Knesset even once, I have no idea what its fate will be in the Supreme Court. [Voting against it] would constitute a total lack of national responsibility. The opposition needs to understand that they are an opposition to the government and not to the State of Israel.”

    As things currently stand, the likely compromise that will be agreed upon is that family reunifications between spouses where one is an Israeli Arab and the other a PA Arab will continue to be banned, unless an exception is granted. However, such couples who have resided within Israel since before 2003, when the law banning automatic citizenship was passed, will receive residency rights.

    The United Arab List, whose four MKs give the government its slim majority, is expected to back this compromise arrangement (by abstaining), seeing it as preferable to the situation arising in which an expanded and permanent version of the current temporary law is voted into law and even possibly instituted as a Basic Law. If the compromise version of the law makes it through the Knesset in all three readings, its practical impact will be that hundreds of Palestinians who married Israeli-Arab spouses before 2003 will become permanent Israeli residents.

    Most Popular
    Watch: Somali migrant yells ‘Allahu Akbar’ during deadly attack
    Watch: Kamala smirks as Biden’s handlers end media session
    Bennett: No new restrictions over the summer
    Spotlight
    Young Mother With Kids In Cart Collapses At Grocery Store
    Opeds
    Stop playing into the Ayatollahs’ hands!
    Regrets, anyone?
    Jewish World
    Herzog to Miami Jewish community: ‘We share your pain’
    WJC President excoriates Polish Holocaust restitution law
    Judaism
    Regarding the 17th of Tammuz
    Pharaoh, please forgive us
    Defense/Security
    Israel Dog Unit breaks the siege of Evyatar
    Stabbing attack foiled near Yitzhar, terrorist neutralized

    Inside Israel
    Young Mother With Kids In Cart Collapses At Grocery Store
    Pit where boy drowned had no barrier, no warning of danger

    Arutz 7 Specials

    © Arutz Sheva, All Rights Reserved
    Home page | Contact | Privacy Policy | Staff | Advertise with us | Israel Tours | ????? ???? 7
    Main
    Homepage
    Op-Eds
    Judaism
    Services
    Caricature
    Israel Pics
    News
    Send Us Breaking News
    News Briefs
    More
    Blogs
    Once-Over
    Radio
    Recorded Shows
    Jukebox

  2. Unless Trump runs again and the signs are he will, in which case, he is the overwhelming favorite. Haley isn’t running for that reason.