An official Israeli government Twitter account linked to an article critical of President Obama in a Tuesday tweet, in another sign on ongoing differences between the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
"Israeli official: Obama doesn’t give us same sense Clinton did that he’ll be there if things go bad - Times of #Israel," the government press office's official Twitter account wrote.
The Times of Israel article it links quotes an anonymous government official attacking Obama's policies towards the region, while simultaneously praising former President Bill Clinton.
“Clinton made us feel like he had our back," the official told the newspaper about the 1990s Camp David accords. "When we made concessions that were greater than anything an Israeli government had ever offered, we felt he’d be there if things went bad. Would he have been there? I don’t know. But it felt that way, and it put us in a different frame of mind. President Obama doesn’t give us the same sense that he’d be there.”
In a statement, the Israeli embassy in Washington said that the tweet did not constitute an endorsement — something that the Twitter account makes clear with a disclaimer that "tweet/RT does not constitute endorsement of view."
"The GPO distributes links to various articles to members of the press community and does not represent the government policy," the embassy told POLITICO. "The quote in this article doesn't reflect the position of the government of Israel. Israel deeply appreciates President Obama's commitment to its security and the superb defense cooperation between our two countries."
Still, the anonymous Israeli official's take on the current security situation contradicts the official line of the Netanyahu government. On the record, the Netanyahu government has said that Obama has given the Jewish state every security assurance on Iran's nuclear weapons program.
"President Obama has said that he’s determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and I appreciate that and I respect that. I think implicit in that is that if you’re determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it means you’ll act before they get nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said recently on NBC's "Meet the Press."
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