The public quarreling between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama continues to break new records, as Netanyahu persists in shooting poisoned arrows at Israel’s greatest ally. My colleague Ben Caspit so aptly wrote Oct. 7 in Al-Monitor, “Netanyahu gambles on Israel’s future and here, in his country, they applaud him.”
The Israeli public — whether it applauds Netanyahu or feels distinctly uncomfortable about his needling of the Americans — believes that Netanyahu and Obama do not much like one another. In fact, mutual loathing and contempt would more precisely describe their feelings. Israelis are convinced, however, that the relationship between the superpower and its Israeli ally is firm and steadfast, resting on common interests and unaffected by the messy relationship between the two men. So what, they ask, if Netanyahu needled Obama about his “American values”?