Environmental extremism may be fashionable. But according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, those who think that hostility to energy production or American energy independence won’t undermine Israel’s security and the chances for expanding the Abraham Accords are mistaken.
He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Jennifer Sutton, executive director of the Jewish Council for a Secure America. Sutton believes that the rush to transition to “green” energy policies is encouraging aggressors like Russia and Iran.
Sutton argues that American energy independence enables it to broker agreements like the Abraham Accords as well as to avoid being dependent on rogue or unreliable states for the supply of oil.
A report on the Israel-Hamas war issued by her organization also points to the fact that sales of Iranian oil to China funded not only the Oct. 7, 2023 assault on the Jewish state but also the Houthi attack on international shipping.
Moreover, it was the prospect of a Saudi-Israel normalization deal to expand the Abraham Accords that prompted Iran to coordinate the current conflict. Sutton also notes that the American domestic energy industry has, despite stereotypes about it being anti-Israel, been extremely supportive of the Jewish state and the Jewish community.
“They were the ones front and center with us on our darkest day in history and the days thereafter, more than any other constituency I can speak to,” said Sutton.
Sutton also believes that it is vital that the United States not withdraw from the Middle East. “America needs to be there,” she says. If America isn’t there, rogue actors like Iran, China or Russia will be. The “peace through prosperity” agenda pursued by the Trump administration is vital not only to ensuring American security but also to lessening the spread of antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
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