Netanyahu Appointee Apologizes for Calling John Kerry Mentally Deficient

Appointment of communications director for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being reviewed by the prime minister himself.

Expectations for the visit aren’t high: USA officials said no final agreement is likely on new US defense aid to Israel, and they conceded the possibility of negotiating a two-state peace deal with the Palestinians is off the table for the remainder of Obama’s time in office.

Netanyahu spoke to Kerry about the new appointee, Ran Baratz, whose comments about the president and the secretary are deemed “troubling and offensive”, said State Department spokesman John Kirby, and the prime minister told the secretary he would review the appointment, which has yet to be fully ratified.

When he said Secretary of State John Kerry had the mental capacity of a child and should be a comedian.

In response to the criticism he received even from within his own party, and before his meeting with President Obama in Washington on Monday, which is to mend fences between Israel and the United States, Netanyahu said that Baratz’s comments on Obama, Rivlin, Kerry are “inappropriate and don’t represent my positions or government policies”.

After acerbic clashes over the US-backed nuclear deal with Iran, the two leaders will discuss a deal expected to be worth more than $30 billion which will include a string of advanced weaponry systems, officials said.

“Obviously there have been occasions when we’ve had disagreements, and that’s well known”, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro told reporters at the start of a press briefing previewing the visit. He has also slammed the Obama administration for trying to force Israeli “capitulation” on the Palestinian issue.

Baratz not only apologized to Netanyahu, but also uploaded an apologetic post to Facebook on Thursday, saying “I am sorry for the hurtful things I posted online”.

Netanyahu’s pick for the post, Ran Baratz, is a conservative academic who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. They will also discuss the next 10-year memorandum of understanding on military cooperation between the United States and Israel; the chaotic situation in Syria; how to counter Iranian threats to Israel, either from Syria or through Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza; and the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal that Obama championed and Netanyahu ardently opposed.

Baratz says his comments posted on Facebook were “written without thinking and sometimes as jokes in language which is appropriate for social networks and for a private person”. “I asked the prime minister for a meeting to clarify the comments in the coming days”.

“A day later they would return him with the desire to open negotiations to return immediately to Iraq”, he wrote.

Obama was especially irked by Netanyahu’s vow during the heat of a tough re-election campaign earlier this year that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch.

Officials said the Obama is still committed to a two state solution but that he doesn’t believe it is possible to achieve this before he leaves office in January 2017.

He was officially named as media adviser and head of public diplomacy and media at the prime minister’s office. “This man, with his words dripping with poison, his mouth is our mouth now”, satirist Mika Almog wrote in the Yediot Ahronoth daily.