The following is an excerpt from an interview with Geneva Initiative Director General Gadi Baltiansky on Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election. The interview was conducted by Keren Noybach on "Seder Yom," an Israel Radio morning show on current events, on November 5th, 2008:

Baltiansky: It’s important to worry, but beyond these worries that is also an opportunity here, there's hope here. Israel needs the United States as a true ally of European countries, as a country that can conduct a dialogue—a critical dialogue, but a dialogue nonetheless—with countries like Syria, or even Iran. It is possible that this track will bear better fruit than Bush's foreign policy, which was not necessarily good for Israel in its outcome, even if the intentions behind it were good.