Harriet Sherwood Writes: Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s spokesman, said the advertisement had “not been co-ordinated with us, we were not consulted and no one asked us for our permission”. In an interview last week with the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli prime minister rejected accusations of interference in the election, saying they were “completely groundless”.
But, according to Yossi Verter writing in Haaretz recently, US officials had relayed to a “very senior Israeli figure” that “in the eyes of the Democratic administration, Netanyahu is perceived as campaigning on behalf of Mitt Romney.” To the president and his aides, the Israeli prime minister’s actions look like “crude, vulgar and unrestrained intervention in the US election campaign”.
