Outspoken right-wing Israeli Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad said that what he took away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama on Monday was that America is on its way to abandoning the Jewish state.

Speaking to Israel National News, Eldad stressed that Obama had insisted on a deadline-free negotiating process with Iran, despite Netanyahu explaining that a nuclear-armed Iran poses a very real existential threat that Israel cannot accept.

Obama’s position essentially means that while the US would prefer for Iran not to go nuclear, it is willing to accept that outcome, said Eldad, adding, “Israel will have no choice but to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities with all the means at its disposal, be the price what it may.”

Netanyahu had hoped to convince Obama that while the Israeli-Arab conflict had been going on for decades, the Iranian nuclear crisis is a game-changing issue that must be dealt with independently and immediately.

Israeli experts fear that Obama is betting on a change in the Iranian leadership when Iranians go to the polls in June, resulting in a halt to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in line with international demands.

But senior Israeli defense officials told The Jerusalem Post that their intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program will steam ahead regardless of who wins the election, and that Iran will be able to field a nuclear weapon within 18 months.

They noted that depending on who wins the presidential election this summer, Iran may not actually use a nuclear bomb, but will use its possession of such weapons to exert dominance over the region.