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…made his first foreign visit Saudi Arabia?
…signed a $110 BILLION arms deal with Saudi Arabia (the largest defense deal in history), to the concern of Israeli officials?
Yuval Steinitz, a senior Cabinet minister and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confidant, called Saudi Arabia “a hostile country” and said the deal was “definitely something that should trouble us.”
This is far from the first massive US weapons sale to the Saudis.
Are US arms sales to Egypt any worse?
President Trump’s visit to Israel is the earliest any President in U.S. history visited Israel in their presidency. Obama didn’t visit Israel altogether in his first term. Obama did visit Egypt within months of becoming president.
And Pres. Trump is the first sitting President in U.S. history to visit the Kosel in Yerushalayim.
In general, Americans don’t like foreign leaders criticizing our own leaders, whatever their own political preferences. I recall how Obama was trashed by Trump for disparaging Lefarge and the Brexit leadership before the vote. I suspect Netanyahu did himself no favors today with American public opinion by his backhanded comments about Obama. Many recall that Obama used “Bush’s recession” to excuse the dismal performance of our economy for the 4 years of his first term. We don’t need Trump using Obama as a piñata for the next 4 years to divert attention from his own non-stop and generally self-inflicted screw-ups.
I believe this arms sale is much bigger than previous ones. The big problem with selling advanced arms to places like Saudi Arabia is that somewhere down the line, the may fall into the hands of people who aren’t as restrained as the Saudis. Remember, the U.S. sold lots of arms to the Shah.
The US national interest is to maintain friendly relations with the Saudis. As it happens, today Israel also has behind the scenes cooperation and relations with the Saudi government/ military.
This is just a distraction from his haircut!
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