Amos Hochstein, who was a senior official focused on the Middle East during the Biden administration, described a pattern of Israeli leaders presenting headstrong views on security and using the U.S. as a scapegoat to rein them in with hawkish security officials and hard-line political partners.

“I’ll say something a bit controversial, but in my mind, since Ronald Reagan, Israel doesn’t have a stop button,” Hochstein said on the “Unholy: Two Jews on the News” podcast June 19.

“Every prime minister, right-wing, left-wing centrist goes to his, whoever it is at the time, the military, the intelligence, his, you know, extremist parties and says, ‘I’m with you, but these darn Americans are forcing me to stop.’ And they’re like, all right, fine, we’ll stop and we’ll do a deal. And that’s been the case in every operation since the 1980s.”