Skip to content
This is no way to treat an ally. Conducting the foreign policy of a great nation requires maturity and a strategic sense of America’s long-term interests. This is no time for schoolyard antics.
— Jeb Bush, writing for National Review, on President Obama’s relationship with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
For twenty years, many people in Israel and in the West have expressed the hope that Benjamin Netanyahu would prove to be the Richard Nixon of the State of Israel … the Nixon who yearned to enter the pantheon of statesmen, and who defied his Red-baiting past and initiated diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. … It is amazing to recall how long this fantasy persisted.
— David Remnick, writing in the New Yorker.
The President should get over it. Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President!
— Sen. John McCain, in an interview with CNN, on President Obama’s “personal problems” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
I was near tears throughout the Prime Minister’s speech — saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States… and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.
— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), quoted by The Hill, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress.
My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to President Obama or the esteemed office that he holds. I have great respect for both.
— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opening “his high-profile visit to the American capital by playing down any personal dispute with President Obama, but he said that he had a ‘moral obligation’ to warn against the dangers of an American-brokered nuclear deal with Iran,” the New York Times reports.
The prime minister was profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq under George W. Bush. We all know what happened with that decision.
— Secretary of State John Kerry, quoted by TPM, on Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criticism of a hypothetical deal with Iran as a threat to Israel.
66% to 33%
Spread by which a majority of Americans believe that Republican congressional leaders should not have invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress without consulting the White House, a new CNN/ORC poll finds.
He is interfering in our internal affairs. … I don’t want to interfere in Israeli internal affairs, but it strikes me that there is an awful lot going on in his neighborhood in the Middle East, and that’s where he should be.
— Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of meddling with U.S. politics, The Hill reports.
