The White House said on Thursday that it was reconsidering the support it has given Israel at the UN even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to row back his election campaign comments rejecting a Palestinian state.
Describing the Israeli leader’s tactics in the final campaign push as “cynical and divisive”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the US had defended Israel at the UN in the past because its government had been committed to a two-state solution.
Mr Earnest said that the Israeli leader’s warning to rightwing voters that Arab-Israelis were turning up to the polls in “droves” had been a “cynical election day tactic that was a pretty transparent effort to marginalise Arab Israeli citizens”.