"Deep disappointment": Netanyahu hits back at Kerry, accuses U.S. of orchestrating UN resolution

I get the sense that he’s annoyed.

That was his Facebook message to Obama. His Facebook message to Trump was “President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel!” So, yeah, Bibi’s happy with the election result. (Although that raises an interesting question: Would Obama have pushed that resolution last week if Clinton was waiting in the wings as his successor or would he have vetoed it and left it to her administration to revisit the topic when she wanted? Remember, he’s trying to tie Trump’s hands. He’d think twice about doing that to a fellow Democrat.)

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Netanyahu’s point here, countering Kerry, is that the U.S. abstention last week wasn’t an affirmation of existing policy (i.e. support for the two-state solution) but a major break with existing policy insofar as the U.S. has traditionally insisted that it’s for Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate the terms of any peace deal directly. The newsy bit, though, comes at 5:00 of the clip below when he wonders if the Obama administration will be spearheading any other anti-Israel initiatives at the UN on its way out the door — which is his cue to accuse Obama and Kerry of having quietly engineered last week’s resolution despite their protestations to the contrary. Kerry admitted in his speech today that the U.S. let other members of the Security Council know that it wouldn’t stand in the way of a “balanced” resolution on Israel, but he was adamant that the U.S. wasn’t the “driving force” behind it. Netanyahu all but calls him a liar, claiming that the U.S. was the driving force and that Israel has airtight intelligence that proves it. Not only that, but he intends to share the intelligence with the Trump administration in case the incoming White House wants to make the information public. (The material that came out this morning is the tip of the iceberg, Netanyahu says.)

Is that Netanyahu hint-hinting that he hopes Trump will embarrass his old frenemy Obama by exposing Kerry’s deceit or is it a shot across the bow of congressional Democrats as the GOP prepares measures to punish the UN for last week’s resolution? Obama and Kerry won’t care if Trump releases information showing that the current White House secretly orchestrated the resolution; Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi might care a lot, though, if pro-Israel Democratic voters are angered by that revelation. That might be enough pressure to drive Democratic votes in Congress towards supporting the GOP’s anti-UN proposals. Maybe McConnell and Ryan can get those two-thirds majorities they need for a veto override after all.

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David Strom 12:40 PM | November 15, 2024
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David Strom 10:30 AM | November 15, 2024
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