Republican US presidential candidate Mitt Romney is planning a trip to Israel this summer, the New York Times has reported.
“He’s a strong friend of Israel and we’ll be happy to meet with him,” Ron Dermer, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser, told the newspaper. Dermer worked with Republicans in the United States before immigrating to Israel, according to the paper.
“We value strong bipartisan support for Israel and we’re sure it will only deepen that,” he added.
A trip to Israel would be designed in part to help Romney build support among Jewish voters, evangelical voters and conservatives.
During the Republican presidential primary, Romney accused President Barack Obama of throwing Israel, in his words, “under the bus.”
This will be Romney’s fourth visit to Israel. His first visit was on a Mormon Church trip, and his second visit was in 2007, when he served as a keynote speaker at the Herzliya Conference. In January 2011, Romney spent three days in Israel during a tour of the region.
Earlier, Romney said his policy toward the Jewish state would be the opposite of Obama’s. Speaking before the “Faith and Freedom Coalition,” he said that Obama is “more concerned about Israel attacking Iran than he is about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“He’s almost sounded like he’s more frightened that Israel might take military action than he’s concerned that Iran might become nuclear,” Romney said.
“It is unacceptable for Iran to become a nuclear nation and that we’re prepared to take any and all action necessary to keep that from happening.”
Asked about the president’s attitude towards Israel, the Republican presidential hopeful said: “Well, I think by in large you could just look at the things the president’s done and do the opposite. You consider his first address to the United Nations he castigated Israel for building settlements.”
Romney described the 1967 borders as “indefensible” and noted that Obama has been “disrespectful of Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
He stressed that if elected, his administration would “forge a strong working relationship with the leadership in Israel.”
“I would not want to show a dime’s worth of distance between ourselves and our allies like Israel. If we have disagreements, we can talk about them, you know, behind closed doors. But to the world, you show that we’re locked arm in arm.
