REBUKE

Report: Netanyahu Threatened New Zealand

Called it a “declaration of war” in last-ditch effort to stop U.N. vote.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly called New Zealand’s foreign minister before last week’s United Nations vote on the settlements and threatened that “Your actions are a declaration of war,” according to a new Haaretz report. New Zealand—along with Senegal, Malaysia, and Venezuela—led a move to resubmit for a vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A few hours before Netanyahu’s last-ditch effort to prevent the vote, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official in Jerusalem called New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel “and warned that if New Zealand’s move came to a vote, Israel might close its embassy in Wellington in protest,” Haaretz additionally reported.