Worst Crisis of Trump Administration Yet
During the campaign President Donald Trump pledged to protect Israel, and parlayed a rocky relationship between President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister into repeated statements of support from Benjamin Netanyahu who even called Trump a “true friend of Israel” the day after the election.Â
Israel is an important partner in the Middle East, yet President Donald Trump last week had no problem sharing “code word” classified information with Iran-friendly Russia. And as The New York Times now reports, it turns out the information Trump shared with top Russian officials came from Israel.
“Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East,” The New York Times reports. “The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the Middle East.”Â
Haaretz reported in January that “Israeli intelligence officials are concerned that the exposure of classified information to their American counterparts in the Trump administration could lead to their being leaked to Russia and onward to Iran.”
Trump Tuesday morning claimed he had a an “absolute right†to share the information with Russia, but given its source, Americans are concerned that Israel will not be as forthcoming and generous in the future.
Next week Trump will visit the Middle East, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Rome.
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