NYTimes | The president’s harsh words
have been deemed by some to be patronizing and disrespectful not only
to Mr. Netanyahu but also to the voters who rewarded his uncompromising
stances with a resounding mandate for a fourth term.
Several
Israeli analysts said the administration’s criticism of Mr. Netanyahu
seemed like a pretext for a longstanding plan to change the United
States’ policy of protecting Israel
in international forums, which the administration has said it will
reassess. Others suspect a ploy to undermine Israel’s lobbying efforts
against the American negotiations for a nuclear accord with Iran.
The rift widened further on Tuesday with a Wall Street Journal report
in which administration officials accused Israeli officials of spying
on the closed-door negotiations with Iran and sharing secret details
about them with Congress and journalists. Three top Israeli ministers
vehemently denied the report. Several congressional Republicans said
they had received no such information, and those in Mr. Netanyahu’s
close circle said it seemed like more poisoning of dirty waters.
“Sometimes
you have these unfortunate patterns that occur when you have tensions
in the relationship,” said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the
United Nations. “Stories based on anonymous sources pop up, and their
purpose seems to be to undermine the alliance between the two
countries.”
In contrast with the White House, leading Israeli voices seem to have accepted Mr. Netanyahu’s post-election clarification that current circumstances make it impossible to imagine meeting his longstanding conditions for supporting a Palestinian state. While Israel’s Arab politicians rejected Mr. Netanyahu’s apology
on Monday for an election-day video in which he warned about Arab
citizens’ descending in “droves” to the polls, several of his most
virulent Jewish critics praised it.
