he didha that because of his belief that israel should the same values of the united states and ahe part of the lord will we have no country that shared those values. that relationship is grown over that time as you pointed out including memorandum of understanding and billions of dollars of aid, the development of iron dome in the list goes on and on, shared intelligence information and technology. so i would just like to get your view as to s that relationship y woit is special and what you hae done in your public life to help strengthen the ties between israel and the united states. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it will come as no surprise to you that i grew up believing that harry truman was a hero, that he didn't have to do what he did and the state of israel may not have come into existence and lasted had he not done that. i think relationship between tha united states and israel is special because we share values and because of the president said as we sleep this morning the united states understands without a state of israel it's not just people of israel who are not safe the jews around the world are not safe without state of israel. so the relationship between the united states and israel is at the core of who i am and what i believe is important for us having an ally in the region that we can count on. while my career is not for the most part been in foreign policy, foreign policy has been integrated into many of the roles i have played. as director of omb, as a chief of staff, as a secretary of the treasury. i was the omb director who helped designry the first m.o.u, to make a multiyear commitment of security assistance to israel. i was a deputy secretary of state who helped israeli becoma member of the oecd, which is the membership organization of the developed nations of the world that israel desperately wanted at a time when it was being marginalized and being thrown out of some international body. i was the omb director who helped fund israel's missile defense on multiple occasions, and not without concerns about its costs and some concerns about the scope of our commitments. i have not shied away from expressing my views when the position of the united states and the position of israel require public officials who represent our government toe do so. i'm happy to discuss those matters, but i believe that my reputation as someone who stand with israel is beyond question. i think the government of israel has made that clear things that said even since my nomination. >> the immediate need for the united states is not israel deal with this war. providing the support and needs dealing with hostage release, dealing with the potential escalation and preventing them from happening. that's going to be thehe immedie concern. but beyond that, you mention the abraham accords and normalization. one of the objectives was to derail their normalization discussions that are taking place in the middle east with the most visible being between the united states, israel and saudi arabia. so tell me a little bit about your view as to how you keep these normalization discussions alive during a time of war. >> mr. chairman, it is going to be a challenge until this war ends for people there or here to focus on the day after but i deeply believe that thoseie of s who have responsibility in this area, as i would if i am confirmed, have to keep our eye on the strategic objectives. because you look at the question of negotiations between israel and saudi arabia, it was in the national interest of israel and saudi arabia two weeks ago, it's in the interests of israel and saudi arabia when this war ends. and we are a critical part of thatd conversation. i had extensive dealings with many of the governments in the region. i would place my utmost support to making that conversation one that can get back on track as a sit in my opening remarks. was theth mission i thought i ws going over to start with. ideally pray that we get back to that mission soon. >> thank you. senator risch. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, let me say that i agree with virtually everything that you have said, particularly as the underlying issue here which i think is the warming relations that were happening between saudi arabia and israel. i i think those are probably the precipitating factors that caused iran to pull the trigger. and iran did pull the trigger in my judgment, got the people who are arabs to rise up against israel, knowing exactly what the consequences would be, and then attempting and successfully many instances turn the world against israel for responding as they did. i think you got that called just thright. i think that that's what's happened. like you, i pray when this is over that we can continue on, aa number of us are meeting with saudi officials to urge that. my problem of course goes back to your performance previously. andas to quote from the "washington post" opinion piece, it says jack s lew must expend white 2015 he promised the same committee he would not allow direct access use financial system under the result in a deal with iran basically tried to do just that. by working to turn 5.7 billion and a ring a ring assets into easily convertible currency via u.s. banks. so i'm going to pursue that line at this time. i want to ask you for civil if you recall sitting in that very chair in july of 2015 and instating, quote, will continue- under the jcpoa iran will continue to be denied access to u.s. financial and commercial markets. do you recall speeders mr. chairman, i i remember that testimony well, and i believe that we kept iran from becoming part of the u.s. financial systo discuss the implementation of the jcpoa. i know you and i may not agree on the policy -- >> that's an understatement. >> of the jpo eight but what we did is we have a better a policy that was transparent, that a testified before this committeer on in terms of what was being done. we negotiated with iran to have them rollback or nuclear program in exchange for which we would get access to money that was their money that we had frozen. all we did was facilitate that transaction. so we did not welcome them back in to the u.s. financial system. >> did you once every 24th, 2016 issued a specific license to the bank costs of raising roughly 5.7 billion to flow through the united states financial system? >> we did issue license that do not recall dash -- univocar those licenses with the vehicle through which binds mood. i don't believe the work. but the concern was we had made an agreement to return money transparently in this committee and return that money was the bargain for a nuclear deal. that's all we get. >> are you telling us to notify us that on february 24, 2016, you authorize that specific license to the bank? >> trichinosis specific license and there is not a practice notifying specific licenses. general licenses are published did. specific licenses are not. >> i want to quote one of the executives from bank muscat when you said there was a gigantic breakthrough of which is a short iran almost full global financial inclusion. that was in response to the license that you issued on february 24, 2016. >> mr. chairman, i can't say, speak to whether someone at that bank muscat said. what i can tell you is the government of iran believed that we did not give them what they expected, which was full access to the world financial system. they complain that my actions were what kept him from getting full access to the world financial system. i know that some of you are going to askng me questions abot what my team said when he went around the world. my team win around the world telling banks all over the world, we did not lift the sanctions on terrorism, we did not lift the sanctions on human rights violations, we did not lift the sanctions on regional destabilization. be careful. and iran thought that kept them from getting what they thought they should get. we did the later of the agreement, gave the most agree to in the jcpoa. nothing more. >> well, my time is almost up. i have to tell you that this is something we knew nothing about at the time that you issued that license. and we believe that that was a direct contravention of what you told us here in this committee in july 2015. and to be honest with you i'm deeply disappointed with that pick as i said, to me this whole thing is about iran. and holding hands with the rent under the table doesn't work for me. and i am deeply disappointed that you issued that license, deeply disappointed that you didn't tell us about it, deeply disappointed that you misled us in july when we had that meeting. meeting. my time is up, mr.e chairman, d i yield, underwhelmed and unpersuaded. thank you. >> senator menendez. >> mr. secretary, congratulations on your nomination. it comes at incredibly vertical type in the us israel relationship. i want to try to go through some few things in the five minutes i have. do you agree with the iran is an existential threat to the te of visual? >> yes, i do. >> and you agree with me that their nuclear program where their enrichment is beyond any commercial grade purpose if continued, it's an existential threat to the state of visual? >> i have believed that the enrichment of uranium in iran is a threat to israel and the world, and that was why i supported the jcpoa because it created a bigger wall at the time. time period i think were closer to that now because they have since come the jcpoa has been ended in terms of our participation. they enrich more. >> you are aware that there are many efforts to delegitimize the state of israel, particularly at the united nations. in 2016, the obama administration to my disappointment which i expressed at the time failed to veto a resolution that did for my perspective exactly that, and attempt to delegitimize the state of visual at the united nations. if you were to be confirmed, under these present circumstances and assuming that it was such a resolution, would you recommend the s president vetoed similar resolutions as signaled out israel, delegitimize its action of self-defense and play down the role of hamas and other organizations thatat undermined the prospect for p?de >> senator, i believe deeply that the human -- >> we are leaving this
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