Netanyahu is heading to Washington to mend fences with Obama following a heated public dispute over the Iran nuclear deal.
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Netanyahu is also scheduled to appear at the American Enterprise Institute’s annual gala on Monday, where he will receive the organization’s Irving Kristol award.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under fire for nominating a new spokesman who has in the past derided the country’s much-admired president, made snarky remarks about U.S. leaders and voiced support for Jewish hardliners. Baratz said he asked the prime minister for an opportunity to clear things up in the coming days.
In March, after Mr Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress attacking the looming Iran deal, Mr Baratz wrote of Mr Obama’s response: “This is how modern anti-Semitism looks in liberal Western countries”.
The White House was not immediately available for comment. It will be the first meeting between Obama and Netanyahu since the USA and five other world powers reached an agreement with Iran about that country’s nuclear program this past July.
In October previous year, Baratz wrote an article on U.S. top diplomat John Kerry, expressing hope that the State Department would “wake up” after Kerry was gone and see the world “through the eyes of a man with a mental age above 12”.
Baratz, 42, has also taken jabs at the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, saying he should seek out a job as a standup comedian, insinuating his speeches are laughable.
“I’ve only read Dr Ran Baratz’s posts online, including those connecting to the president of the state of Israel, the president of America as well as other public figures in Israel as well as America”, he said in a statement.
“It primarily exhibits him to be such a marginal determine that there isn’t a concern for his security. It seems that we could even send him paragliding over the Golan Heights and into ISIS-controlled territory (a reference to the Israeli-Arab who was said to have done that last week)”. He said the two would meet, at Dr Baratz’s request, after he returns from his USA trip next week.
Baratz, in a Facebook post Thursday night, apologized for “the hurtful remarks”. He was quoted by Israel’s Channel Two tv as saying his assertion was satirical.
The comments “were troubling and offensive”. In September, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said his government would no longer consider itself bound by the Oslo peace agreements in effect for two decades, charging that Israel had failed to live up to its obligations.
Eleven Israelis have been killed.
Hotovely and Danon are hardliners who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state; last week, Hotovely said she dreamed of raising an Israeli flag over the esplanade on which al-Aqsa Mosque stands in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Israelis joked that Baratz didn’t heed the advice given to college graduates to scrub their Facebook pages before sending out resumes.
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But he added: “I wish a way could be found to build it”.
