US ‘not getting involved’ in Netanyahu’s far-right election merger

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the US is not getting involved in the controversy surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s alliance with an far-right political party ahead of national elections.

“We’re not about to get involved in an election to interfere in an election of a democracy,” he tells CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview. “Election campaigns are tough. We’ll allow the Israeli people to sort this out.

“I’m confident that when the election is over, the United States will continue to have a strong, important, very deep relationship with Israel that protects the American people and benefits Israel as well,” Pompeo says.

Netanyahu last week pushed for the merger that folded the Otzma Yehudit party into the larger Jewish Home party for April elections.

Otzma Yehudit’s leadership is made up of disciples of the American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Jewish supremacist Kach party was banned under Israeli law for incitement to racism and later declared a terrorist group.

The deal has been widely criticized in Israel, and even strong supporters of Israel in the US have spoken out against it. The American Jewish Committee, a major pro-Israel advocacy group, and the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC have both called Otzma “reprehensible.”