PressTV... Israel’s recent claims that the US government was behind a UN measure against illegal Israeli settlements amounts to “the beginning of a war” on Washington, Democratic Representative Jim McDermott says.
“What we’re seeing is the beginning of a war on the American government,” he told MSNBC on Monday, arguing that Israeli officials were trying to make a case against the administration of President Barack Obama and force his successor Donald Trump to fully comply with their demands.
“We’re seeing the air war right now, and we’re seeing all these tweets and all this kind of innuendo and all these half-stories, and all this stuff to create tremendous tension so that when the president comes in on the 20th, he can begin the ground war, which will be when his appointees begin to carry out his actions in the departments across the government,” the lawmaker from Washington continued.
On Friday, the UN Security Council voted 14-0 to pass Resolution 2334, which demanded an immediate end to Israel’s “illegal” settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territories.
The unanimous vote was made possible after Washington broke away from its long-running tradition of vetoing anti-Israeli measures and decided to abstain from voting.
The decision angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who summoned the representatives of most of the countries backing the measure and reduced diplomatic ties with 12 of them on Monday.
Netanyahu also gave US Ambassador Daniel Shapiro an earful over the vote and accused US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry of personally conducting the “shameful” act.
Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer pushed the envelope even further, saying on Monday that Tel Aviv was in possession of evidence that showed Obama’s role in the resolution.
He said Israel would hand over the evidence to the Trump administration once the New York businessman is inaugurated on January 20.
Pointing to Obama’s rocky relations with Netanyahu over the past years, McDermott said Monday that Israel was trying to push Trump to take a friendlier line than Obama.
“They never could get 100 percent out of Barack Obama, so they decided to attack him and use him as the reason for why Trump should come in and give them everything they want,” he said.