Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday decried a reported comment from a senior Obama administration official that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was “a chickensh—,” saying the remark was “disgraceful.”
Appearing at The Atlantic’s Ideas Forum in Washington, the top U.S. diplomat condemned the attack from an unnamed administration official and said it didn’t reflect President Barack Obama or his values.
“We condemn anybody who uses language such as was used in this article,” Kerry said, in response to the report in The Atlantic. “That does not reflect the president, it does not reflect me. It is disgraceful, unacceptable, damaging. And I think neither President Obama, nor I — I’ve never heard that word around me in the White House, or anywhere.”
He also expressed frustration with a pattern of leaks coming out of the administration with regards to Israel, a problem many have said has contributed to increased tensions between the two allies. “I don’t know who these anonymous people are we keep getting quoted in things,” Kerry said. “But they make life much more difficult — and we are proud of what we have done to help Israel through a very difficult time.”
The secretary went on to praise Obama’s support for Israel during its conflict with Palestine, specifically citing the president’s support for the Iron Dome missile defense program that helped minimize casualties from Hamas rockets over the summer.
Several other administration officials have criticized the remarks. White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Wednesday called them “counterproductive,” and a National Security Council spokeswoman called them “inappropriate.” Both also hailed the close relationships between the two countries and Netanyahu’s visit with Obama at the White House earlier this month.
So when will the firing take place? Someone knows who made the remark and someone needs to rat this person out. I am not a big fan of Netanyahu but this type of talk is extremely unproductive to our relationship with Israel. Additionally, it destabilizes world peace in a fragile region.
Netanyahu has been accused of guarding his political career above peace. Regardless, publically calling him “a chickenshit” from behind the veil of anonymity is pure cowardice. Whatever unnamed source made this remark did the president he serves no favors. He did our country no favors.
President Obama needs to flush this one out and fire him. Secretary of State John Kerry is correct.
Jen Psaki made it clear that the Obama administration has no interest in trying to find out who made recent inflammatory comments about Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Is the administration trying to figure out who made these inappropriate and counter-productive comments?” Reuters reporter Arshad Mohammed asked.
“No,” Psaki said. “There are anonymous sources in all of your stories every single day. If we spent all of our time focused on that effort we wouldn’t be working on diplomacy.”
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-not-interested-in-which-admin-official-made-netanyahu-attacks-2/
That was the public statement. She is right. People talk out of turn all the time. However, do you think that is what is really happening? Someone knows.
You always act disinterested. It throws the opposition off guard.
It could have been Kerry himself who made the original remark. I don’t think he is a big fan of Netanyahu. And we all know that Kerry could have been for the criticism of Netanyahu before he was against it.
@Kelly_3406
He was in Vietnam, you know…..
@ Kelly: I don’t think there has been any senior official in the foreign policy wing of any administration in the past 20 years who is a “big fan” of Netanyahu.
I’d agree with Scout but for probably different reasons. Netanyahu doesn’t care what anybody else in the world thinks about him. He’s going to do whatever he wants if he thinks it’s in Israel’s interest. He doesn’t make many friends that way because he has no interest in compromise or seeing the other side of things. Not saying those as positives or negatives. Just that Netanyahu makes no bones about being 100% for Israel and 0% for anybody else.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind some leadership in the US from either party that was a little more forceful about putting the interests of the American people first.