New Jersey governor Chris Christie on Thursday spoke at the third annual “Champions of Jewish Values” awards gala in New York.

In his remarks, Christie launched a verbal attack on President Barack Obama, accusing the president of “successfully selling to the American people the idea that America was the cause of violence in the world”.

Today, Christie continued, the Middle East “is on fire” and it is up to the President to “say to those who caused this violence in the world that America will not stand for it.”

“Instead, he draws red lines for Syria and then, when Assad uses chemical weapons on his people he says ‘Never mind,’” said Christie, who then charged that Obama at times is “unwilling to stand up to anyone in the world other than Prime Minister Netanyahu, who actually happens to be our friend.”

“Ironic now that as the world comes apart, the President only has the resolve to stand up to our friends and not to stand up to evil,” he added.