Sarkozy Tells Obama: Can’t Stand ‘Liar’ Bibi
Uh-Oh Moment: President Nicholas Sarkozy better check the microphone before he makes any more frank comments. Barack Obama might want to do the same. Image by getty images
Ooops.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was caught on an open microphone telling President Barack Obama last week he was fed up with dealing with Benjamin Netanyahu and considered the Israeli prime minister a liar.
Sarkozy made the comment during a private conversation with Obama during a G20 summit in the French riviera town of Cannes last week and the remarks were overheard by a small number of journalists but not initially reported.
“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama during a frank exchange where the U.S. president took him to task for backing a Palestinian request for membership of the UN cultural heritage agency UNESCO, Haaretz reported.
A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments, which were relayed by a French internet outlet on Tuesday.
Obama reportedly responded: “You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day,” Ynet News reported, citing a translation of a French interpreter during their Cannes exchange.
The Anti-Defamation League later issued a statement, calling the exchange “decidedly unpresidential.”, JTA reported.
In their quest for statehood recognition, the Palestinians have requested membership of the over-arching United Nations system, in addition to its Paris-based UNESCO subsidiary.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the opposition Kadima Party, whose last Knesset campaign slogan was “Bibi, I don’t believe him,” chose not to comment on the open mike snafu.
“What Sarkozy said is more than enough,” a party spokesman told the paper.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
