Israel’s ambassador to the United States says that criticism from within the Jewish state of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace-making efforts is traceable to Israel’s “very rambunctious democracy” and not to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This is not coming from the prime minister,” Ambassador Ron Dermer says in a nationally broadcast interview.
“The prime minister appreciates” what Kerry has done in seeking a ceasefire in the Gaza war, Dermer says.
And he calls the more than three-week conflict “a just war.”
Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, formerly senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
“I can’t think of a more just war,” Dermer says in an appearance on MSNBC. “Hamas is no different than al-Qaeda. You can imagine what the American people would want their government to do.”
“This is the Israeli press that is speaking. We are a free country,” he says.
“We have a coalition government,” he says. “People have to understand this is a very rambunctious democracy.” Dermer says he would be deserving of a prize if he could get Netanyahu out of a Knesset debate “without someone calling him a liar.”
Dermer argues that “87 percent” of the Israeli people are against a ceasefire, saying “I think the criticism you’re seeing is a country at war, a free press.”
— AP
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