Since President Richard Nixon intervened on the side of Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria, the Jewish state has looked to the United States as its partner for peace in the Middle East.
It did until the presidency of Barack Obama, that is.
During his two terms, he has pushed for a one-sided nuclear agreement with Israel-hating, terror sponsor Iran, shunned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and generally favored Palestine in its border disputes with Israel.
On Thursday, the American president’s hands-off policy finally resulted in what Nixon tried to prevent almost 43 years ago – the outsized influence of Russia (then the Soviet Union) in the region.
In 1973, Nixon chose to come to the defense of Israel not only because it was being attacked by Egypt and Syria but because a defeat of Israel – with the backing of Soviet weapons – would be unthinkable in the struggle for preeminence among the world’s two superpowers during the Cold War.