Report: Netanyahu Threatened New Zealand

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.