David Simas, director of the White House’s Office of Political Strategy Outreach, congratulated “the Israeli people” for Tuesday’s elections in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party emerged victorious.
“We want to congratulate the Israeli people for the democratic process for the election that they just engaged in with all the parties that engaged in that election,” Mr. Simas said Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day.”
In the run-up to the elections, Mr. Netanyahu said earlier in the week that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he was prime minister of Israel, and also irked the Obama administration when he recently traveled to Washington and warned of the dangers of ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear weapons program before a joint session of Congress.
“As you know now, the hard work of coalition building begins,” Mr. Simas said. “Sometimes that takes a couple of weeks. And we’re going to give space to the formation of that coalition government and we’re not going to weigh in one way or another except to say that the United States and Israel have a historic and close relationship and that will continue going forward.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.