Ehud Barak, Netanyahu spat over US aid deal

Ehud Barak, Israel’s Former Prime Minister and Defense Minister, has said that current PM Benjamin Netanyahu had made a hash of Israel’s negotiations that led to the recent signing of a military aid deal with the US work $38 bn over ten years.

In a series of media interventions the two men traded numerous barbs over the arms deal. First of all, in an article for the Washington Post, Barak blamed Netanyahu for failing to a glean more money from the US,

The damage produced by Netanyahu’s irresponsible management of the relations with the White House is now fully manifest. Israel will receive $3.8 billion a year — an important contribution to our security but far less than what could have been obtained before the prime minister chose to blatantly interfere with U.S. politics

Yet soon after the US paper started releasing quotes from the story, Netanyahu responded in kind, branding Barak as “the greatest failure as a prime minister in Israel’s history” and going on to criticize Barak for making comments to a foreign publication.

However, Barak was not finished. Throughout the evening he gave several radio and TV interviews in Israel, all of which were scathing of the current prime minister’s performance in the negotiations and beyond. He complained that Netanyahu had squandered the opportunity for deeper ties with the US in fields such as intelligence over Iran.

Everything was on the table and waiting, but Netanyahu chose to stomp into American politics and missed the opportunity

Netanyahu celebrated the signing of the military aid deal yesterday,

PM Netanyahu: This agreement illustrates a simple truth:relations between Israel and the US are strong and steadfast pic.twitter.com/UxP77rIHpS

— Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) September 14, 2016

Israel has maintained a belligerent military occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967. Its forces have enforced a debilitating siege on Gaza since 2007 while it systematically seizes Palestinian lands in the West Bank in order to build housing and communities for its own citizens, in contravention of both UN Security Council Resolutions and the fourth Geneva Convention.