Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

Carter is asserting a long-running, bipartisan U.S. role as the principal external “leader” in Arab–Israeli diplomacy and in sustaining Israel’s security—framing that role as broadly consistent across administrations. By naming Republican and Democratic presidents (Ford, George H. W. Bush, himself, Clinton), he emphasizes continuity and “balance,” implying that effective U.S. mediation requires maintaining credibility with multiple parties rather than acting as a purely partisan advocate. The remark also functions as a defense of his own Middle East record by placing it within a tradition of presidential stewardship, and it implicitly critiques moments when U.S. policy might be seen as departing from that balanced leadership.