Netanyahu Intensifies Criticism Of The Obama Administration, Thanks Trump

This kind of animosity toward a U.S. president is "certainly unprecedented," an Israeli analyst says.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement to the press at his Jerusalem office on December 28 2016, in response to a speech by the US Secretary of State.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement to the press at his Jerusalem office on December 28 2016, in response to a speech by the US Secretary of State.
GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always had a rocky relationship with the Barack Obama administration, but in the wake of Secretary of State John Kerry's anti-settlement speech Wednesday and the United States' decision to allow a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning settlements, he has abandoned all pretense of bilateral decorum.

Immediately following Kerry's remarks, Netanyahu criticized Kerry in scathing terms in a prime-time speech on Israeli television.

Kerry's speech, Netanyahu said, was "almost as unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution passed at the U.N. last week."

"For a full hour, the secretary of State attacked the only democracy in the Middle East," he added.

Earlier in the day, Netanyahu and Cabinet member Naftali Bennett, who opposes a two-state solution, retweeted President-elect Donald Trump's message promising his policy at the United Nations would be different toward Israel.