TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a brand new media advisor who has tweeted critically towards President Joe Biden, the every day Haaretz reported.
The appointment comes at a time when U.S.-Israel relations are strained.
Gilad Zwick, a journalist with a conservative Israeli TV station, has in his tweets known as Biden “unfit” to rule and stated that he was “slowly however certainly destroying America.” He additionally posted tweets suggesting he supported President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 U.S. election was rigged. The tweets have been nonetheless on-line Monday.
Each Netanyahu’s workplace and Zwick didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Zwick beforehand labored for Israel Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu every day.
Zwick’s appointment comes as ties between Israel and its closest ally, the US, are fraught over a contentious Israeli authorities plan to overtake the judiciary and over the federal government’s ultranationalist character.
Biden has publicly expressed concern over the Netanyahu authorities’s plan to reshape the authorized system, which has sparked mass protests that proceed weekly even after the plan was placed on maintain.
The Biden administration has also voiced unease about Netanyahu’s government, made up of ultranationalists who have been as soon as on the fringes of Israeli politics and now maintain senior positions coping with the Palestinians and different delicate points.
Amid the tensions, Biden has up to now denied Netanyahu a sometimes customary invitation to the White Home after his election win late final 12 months.
Critics accuse Netanyahu of step by step shifting Israel from a bipartisan matter to a wedge challenge in U.S. politics. They level to him showing to brazenly help Republican candidates in addition to his 2015 speech to Congress which was seen as a slight to the Obama administration over its nuclear cope with Iran. Netanyahu says Israel’s bond with the U.S. is unbreakable and downplays any rifts as disagreements between associates.
Final month, Israel’s parliament hosted U.S. House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who grew to become simply the second Home speaker to deal with the Knesset, after Republican Newt Gingrich in 1998.