President Obama answered with surprising honesty, “I want to emphasize this to everybody who is watching — if I lived in Israel, and I had seen rockets rain down on homes, as I’ve seen when I went to a place like Sderot, if my grandparents had traveled to Israel and lost family in the Holocaust and I hear somebody denying it, I’ve got a visceral reaction that says, how can I do business with somebody like that? I understand it. It’s loathsome. And I think it’s been said repeatedly — and I think as an African American I understand — history teaches us that man can be very cruel to man and you have to take threats seriously. But what history also teaches us is that sometimes the best security is to enter into negotiations with your enemies.”
The president continued: “So I am appreciative of the anxieties and the concerns that people have. I respect them. I’m somebody who wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for the support of friends and supporters in the Jewish community all across this country — some of whom are watching right now, some of whom who oppose this deal but are still my friends and we’ll still be playing golf, and they’ll be over at a Seder dinner next year.”
And so, he said, “if we are able to accomplish that and make sure that, with all the other problems that are going on in the region, and all the other threats that Israel and the United States face, from ISIL and from the collapse of places like Yemen and what’s happening in Syria — if we’re able to take this one thing and put that away, it is going to free us up — the United States and Israel — to work together for the safety, security and prosperity of all our people for years to come … That’s the reason why I’m hopeful that members of Congress get behind this deal. And I promise you that nobody is going to have a bigger stake in implementing it effectively than me.”