(July 19, 2022 / JNS) Addressing attendees at the Christians United for Israel summit on Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said US President Joe Biden was repeating former President Jimmy Carter’s mistakes in his foreign and domestic policy.

Cruz told the audience that they came together at a time of enormous peril and opportunity, with the blossoming of historic peace in the Middle East following the 2020 Abraham Accords.

He said that for decades Republican and Democratic administrations believed the best approach to Israel was ambiguity, which has proven ineffective. He urged the public to compare this to the strategy he and former President Donald Trump advocated, which was to “draw a clear line and say the United States stands unequivocally with Israel.”

Cruz attributed the success of the Abraham Accords to two earlier actions by Trump: the long-promised move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018 and the withdrawal of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). ) of the Obama administration with Iran. that same month.

The senator said he lobbied for both decisions directly with Trump against the advice of then-US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who argued that the president should stay in the Iran deal and keep the embassy in Tel Aviv.

“The Secretary of Defense has said publicly, ‘America keeps its word.’ To which I said: ‘Mr. Secretary, that’s right. But under the US Constitution, America gives our word in two and only two ways, in a law passed by Congress signed by the president or a treaty signed by the president and ratified by the Senate. It was neither,” Cruz said of the JCPOA.

Cruz praised Trump for “having the courage” to reverse the decision of his own advisers. He said that during the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords on the White House lawn in the fall of 2020, the foreign ministers and ambassadors of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain told him that the decisions showed to their nations that if they wanted to be friends with America, then they also had to be friends with Israel.

“We are going through a difficult period today”

For the majority of his speech, Cruz criticized US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, saying Biden has returned to the same failed policies that undermine our allies and elevate Israel’s enemies in the region, in addition to allowing hundreds millions of dollars for Hamas and other terrorist organizations seeking to kill Israelis.

“Now we are in a difficult period today. Joe Biden is President of the United States, or so they say,” he said, to laughter from the audience.

“On the embassy, ​​the Biden White House would desperately want to close our embassy in Jerusalem. But even they know politically that it’s untenable,” Cruz said. “So their alternative strategy is that they want to open a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem.”

He said opening a consulate in Jerusalem is not necessary to provide consular services to the Palestinians, which can be done in Ramallah, but it is to “elevate Palestinian claims of sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem”.

Cruz turned to his second problem with Biden: his desperation to rejoin the JCPOA. Cruz said the only reason it hasn’t been accomplished is because Iran is so extreme that it “won’t take yes for an answer.”

He added that he pushed legislation in the Senate to prevent both things from happening.

Cruz criticized the negotiations with Iran, particularly the administration’s previous discussions of delisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizationsdespite the organization being the “leading state sponsor of terrorists on the planet” and actively attempting to assassinate former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

“Some of you in this room are old enough to remember the 1970s. … I think Joe Biden is weirdly, weirdly repeating the mistakes of Jimmy Carter,” Cruz said. “I was a kid in the 1970s. 70. I remember double digit inflation, gas lines around the block. Our hostages have been languishing in Iran for 444 days while a weak and thoughtless president wrings his hands, unable to react.

“Right now in Georgia, Jimmy Carter is saying, ‘Yeah! Not the worst president ever!’ ” he said.

Cruz concluded by saying that the analogy between Carter and Biden gives him hope “because it took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan.