The Jewish and pro-Israel community immediately reacted to the selection of Robert O’Brien as U.S. President Donald Trump’s fourth national security advisor, replacing John Bolton, who was ousted on Sept. 10.
“We congratulate Mr. O’Brien on his appointment, and we look forward to working with him to further strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship,” American Israel Public Affairs Committee spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JNS.
“O’Brien is a solid pick, with a good reputation within the State Department bureaucracy as a result his previous role as the administration’s point man on hostage affairs,” Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, told JNS. “In that capacity, he is intimately familiar with most of the hot-button issues—Iran, North Korea, the ‘War on Terror’—that are on the front burner in Washington at the moment.”
The appointment, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation, came as America weighs how to respond to Iran striking two Saudi Aramco oil facilities on Sept. 14.
Other looming geopolitical threats that O’Brien, who previously served as the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, will face in his new role are Russia and China.
“Mr. O’Brien is a great friend of Israel, and is now the top-ranking Mormon in the pro-Israel Trump administration,” Zionist Organization of America national president Mort Klein told JNS. “He is also best friends with ardent Zionist U.S. Ambassador to Germany [Richard] Grenell … And you can’t be a great friend of evangelical Christian Grenell unless you support Israel.”
O’Brien served under President George W. Bush as a U.S. alternate delegate to the United Nations in 2005, in which he emphasized America’s commitment towards solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bolton was then the U.S. ambassador to the world body.
“Endorsing resolutions that condemn Israeli actions, but that fail to address Palestinian actions or inactions, have real consequences,” he said then to the world body.
Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes expressed cautious optimism over Wednesday’s appointment.
“As expressed in his book While America Slept, Robert O’Brien has reassuringly conventional conservative views on U.S. foreign policy,” he said. “But I worry when, as Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, he writes that ‘we implore their captors to release the hostages as an act of humanity.’ Let’s hope he acquires a more robust outlook in his new role.”