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U.S.-Israel Defense Relations Stay Solid
(Washington Jewish Week-JTA) Dmitriy Shapiro - During the confirmation hearing for defense secretary nominee Ashton Carter on Feb. 4 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked about the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. Carter replied, "If you take at face value what they say, they have the ambition to wipe off the map other states in the region, namely Israel....They have a long history of behaving in a disruptive way, of supporting terrorism, of trying to undermine other governments operating around the world. So I think they give abundant evidence that they're not the kind of people you want to have having nuclear weapons." Longtime observers of the U.S.-Israel relationship say that whatever personal tensions plague interactions between Obama and Netanyahu, defense ties are as sound as ever, bolstered by the longstanding relationships between the militaries, partnerships on several weapons development projects and a shared interest in containing radical Islam. "Along with the Saudis, the Israelis constitute the closest American ally in this entire region," said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official and now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.