Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Elliott Abrams said he would not be encouraged by President Obama's seemingly stronger focus on House Republicans Friday than on the dangerous situations in Ukraine and Israel if he lived in either of those countries.
Abrams, who served as Deputy National Security Adviser under President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that Obama's rather dispassionate attitude about world crises versus his stern rhetoric against Republicans didn't come off well.
"If I were an Israeli under Hamas fire or for that matter a Ukrainian under Russian shelling, it seemed to me I would not take much comfort from the president's attack on House Republicans," Abrams said. "There wasn't a lot of energy in the way he delivered his remarks, but he did, I think, move closer than the administration has been to the Israeli point of view. And one of the things this kidnapping did today was absolutely unite Israelis, left, right and center, with the view that the tunnels have got to be closed down, exploded, before this war comes to an end. That's now a really unanimous view in Israel."
Days after statements from the White House condemning Israel for violence in Gaza, Abrams said there was a "significant" shift in the language of Obama, who condemned the "outrageous" truce violation by Hamas for its "barbaric" kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.