Please stay out of my country's foreign policy, Mr. Netanyahu.
From Haaretz, (firewall) and The Times of Israel:
The White House’s outrage over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to speak before Congress in March — a move he failed to coordinate with the administration — began to seep through the diplomatic cracks on Friday, with officials telling Haaretz the Israeli leader had “spat” in President Barack Obama’s face.
“We thought we’ve seen everything,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed senior US official as saying. “But Bibi managed to surprise even us.
“There are things you simply don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price,” he said.
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Officials in Washington said that the “chickenshit” epithet — with which an anonymous administration official branded Netanyahu several months ago — was mild compared to the language used in the White House when news of Netanyahu’s planned speech came in.
The stakes here -- the Administration's
complex efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions -- could not be higher, for this country and a large part of the world. The prospect of a foreign leader "invited" by a political party to deliver a public, unauthorized "rebuttal" to an active and ongoing U.S. Administration's foreign policy, "legitimized" in front of a U.S. Congress, is nothing less than an appalling, Un-American disgrace, and the Republican Party and its House leader, John Boehner that invited him to do so should be hanging its head in shame.
But then again, Un-Americanism has never bothered the Republican Party. When your entire political strategy revolves around denying people the right to vote, I suppose Un-Americanism comes naturally, like putting on a familiar pair of gloves.
The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu’s apparent disrespect for US leadership was particularly offensive to Secretary of State John Kerry, who over the past month had made frenzied efforts on Israel’s behalf on the world stage — making dozens of calls to world leaders to convince them to oppose a UN Security Council resolution which would have set a timeframe for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The secretary’s patience is not infinite,” a source close to Kerry told the Post. “The bilateral relationship is unshakable. But playing politics with that relationship could blunt Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for being Israel’s primary defender.”
Netanyahu appears to fully recognize what he's doing, to the point where he's stooped to
lying about it.
Democrats accused Republicans on Thursday of breaking protocol by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress without consulting them, challenging Israel's assertion that the invitation was extended by both U.S. political parties.
Netanyahu's government issued a statement on Thursday saying the invitation had been extended by the "two-party leadership" of Congress, but congressional aides said they knew of no members of the party who had been consulted.
Here's a question for you, Mr. Netanyahu. If you have to lie about who invited you here, why would the American people believe anything you choose to say?