John Bolton told Israel ambassador ‘Condi Rice sold you out to the French': Report
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Alik Keplicz)
John Bolton, who was just named President Trump’s next national security adviser, years ago accused then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of selling Israel “out to the French," according to a new report.
Israel’s former United Nations ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told the Daily Beast that when Bolton was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the President George W. Bush administration, he would routinely reach out and “alerted me to the fact that his mission — the United States mission to the U.N. — was about to vote against Israel and asked that I alert the prime minister, who at that time was Ehud Olmert.”
As a result, Gillerman said that Olmert would contact Bush and “got him to overrule the State Department.”
Watch Full Screen to Skip Ads
In one case, Bolton contacted Gillerman in 2006 as the U.N. Security Council was weighing a resolution intended to end a dispute between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Because Lebanon and Israel did not have diplomatic relations, the French government was representing Lebanon and the U.S. was representing Israel in the negotiations. But Gillerman said the “French resolution was totally unacceptable to Israel” and Bolton called and warned him about it in advance.
“In that case John Bolton got in touch with me at about 8 o’clock in the evening, which was 3 in the morning in Israel, calling to say, ‘You have to call your prime minister and tell him that Condi Rice sold you out to the French,’” Gillmerman said.
Gillerman admitted that he contacted Olmert and the resolution was altered, although GIllerman did not disclose how.
Omert backed Gillerman’s account of the incident and Rice disclosed in her autobiography that years later she learned, “Bolton had been sharing information with the Israelis through their U.N. ambassador without permission to do so. That practice had backfired, as the Israeli ambassador was one step behind the discussions between the White House and the prime minister’s office.”
In response to Rice’s autobiography, Bolton said, “Of course I kept the Israelis informed about the state of play in the negotiations. That’s how you treat close allies.”
Trump announced last week that that Bolton would be replacing H.R. McMaster as national security adviser via a tweet last Thursday. He will officially start the job on April 9.
Bolton had previously been in the running for secretary of state before Trump nominated Rex Tillerson, who was fired earlier this month.
Posts
