"We're all pro-Israel," the president told a webcast with the American Jewish community. "We're all family."
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After the United States Congress debates and votes on the Iran nuclear deal next month, US and Israeli policy on Iran will realign "pretty quick," President Barack Obama predicted on Friday.
Speaking during a live webcast with the American Jewish community, co-sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America, Obama said that daylight between the two allies was healthy and that an absence of argument "could be dangerous" for both countries.
Speaking from the White House, Obama said he was committed to maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge in the region and to preventing the flow of Iranian arms to its proxies on Israel's borders.
"We're all pro-Israel," he stated. "We're all family."
While he rejected an equivalence of heated rhetoric from both sides of the debate, Obama said he respected opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - the formal name for the nuclear accord reached on July 14 - when their arguments came from a principled place.
"People of goodwill could come down on different sides of this issue," Obama said. "Like all families, there are going to be disagreements."
He decried, however, the treatment of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York), who endorsed the nuclear deal to the anger of much of his constituency. The response on social media to his decision was fierce, and included the use of the term "kapo," referring to Jews who cooperated with Nazis during the Holocaust.
Obama says the JCPOA puts permanent restrictions on Iran ever acquiring nuclear weapons. Critics fear it paves a path for Iran to acquiring a nuclear weapons capacity, putting them ever on the brink of weaponization.
On this concern, the president said that, "in fifteen years, if what the critics say is true," his successors will have the support of the international community to respond.
And in the meantime, "nothing in this agreement prevents us from continuing to push back forcefully against terrorist activity," he said. "We aren't normalizing relations with Iran here."
Obama characterized the deal as a fifteen-year "penalty box" for Iran's past behavior, which then eases to allow Tehran to "open up their peaceful nuclear program."
"In the best of all worlds, Iran would have no nuclear infrastructure whatsoever," Obama continued. But he said that international powers did not agree that Iran could reasonably be denied the ability to enrich uranium, one of the two main paths to obtaining weapons-grade fissile material.
"After ten years, they are able to obtain some additional advanced centrifuges," he said. But he added: They will still be "carefully monitored."
Speaking during a live webcast with the American Jewish community, co-sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America, Obama said that daylight between the two allies was healthy and that an absence of argument "could be dangerous" for both countries.
Speaking from the White House, Obama said he was committed to maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge in the region and to preventing the flow of Iranian arms to its proxies on Israel's borders.
"We're all pro-Israel," he stated. "We're all family."
While he rejected an equivalence of heated rhetoric from both sides of the debate, Obama said he respected opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - the formal name for the nuclear accord reached on July 14 - when their arguments came from a principled place.
"People of goodwill could come down on different sides of this issue," Obama said. "Like all families, there are going to be disagreements."
He decried, however, the treatment of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York), who endorsed the nuclear deal to the anger of much of his constituency. The response on social media to his decision was fierce, and included the use of the term "kapo," referring to Jews who cooperated with Nazis during the Holocaust.
Obama says the JCPOA puts permanent restrictions on Iran ever acquiring nuclear weapons. Critics fear it paves a path for Iran to acquiring a nuclear weapons capacity, putting them ever on the brink of weaponization.
On this concern, the president said that, "in fifteen years, if what the critics say is true," his successors will have the support of the international community to respond.
And in the meantime, "nothing in this agreement prevents us from continuing to push back forcefully against terrorist activity," he said. "We aren't normalizing relations with Iran here."
Obama characterized the deal as a fifteen-year "penalty box" for Iran's past behavior, which then eases to allow Tehran to "open up their peaceful nuclear program."
"In the best of all worlds, Iran would have no nuclear infrastructure whatsoever," Obama continued. But he said that international powers did not agree that Iran could reasonably be denied the ability to enrich uranium, one of the two main paths to obtaining weapons-grade fissile material.
"After ten years, they are able to obtain some additional advanced centrifuges," he said. But he added: They will still be "carefully monitored."
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