Rubio challenges Clinton's support for Israel

Israel by then had already paid a high price - Gaza having become a de facto terrorist State with Hamas firmly entrenched as Gaza's governing authority. Israel had been subjected to a sustained barrage of thousands of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of operating so freely from Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

President Obama has also disgracefully attempted to subvert his predecessor's commitments for the last seven years - aided and abetted by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who reportedly laid the groundwork on 6 June 2009:

Since coming to office in January, President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to halt all settlement activity in Palestinian areas, a demand rejected by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israelis say they received commitments from the previous US administration of President George W. Bush permitting some growth in existing settlements.

They say the US position was laid out in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon.

Clinton rejected that claim, saying any such US stance was informal and "did not become part of the official position of the United States government.

Clinton – doubling as Obama's attack dog – made Obama's sinister intentions clearer on 25 November 2009:

We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.

Clinton's blatant disregard of Bush's commitments - which had never mentioned "agreed swaps" - signalled trouble for Israel if Obama indeed confirmed Clinton's statements.

Eighteen months later Israel's worst fears were realised when Obama declared on 19 May 2011:

The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.

Michael Oren – former Israeli Ambassador to Washington between 2009 and 2013 – has called for Bush's commitments to be resuscitated:

.. it's time to revive the Bush-Sharon letter and act according to it.

Rubio has to his credit so reacted.

Motherhood-statements supporting Israel by the remaining candidates vying to become America's next President pale into insignificance compared to Rubio's coming out and pledging to honour Bush's Congress-endorsed commitments to Israel.

Clinton, and for that matter Sanders, Trump, Cruz and Kasich, must do likewise or allow America's reputation as a trustworthy and reliable ally to be forever trashed.