JERUSALEM, Israel – Democratic lawmakers’ reactions to last week’s public row between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy set off a firestorm of criticism, yet comparisons of how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was treated by Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama have critics calling foul.

Former Presidents Obama and Biden publicly humiliated Netanyahu, according to media reports, and the Israeli leader, in sharp contrast to Zelenskyy, did not garner the same solidarity from many European leaders and legacy media outlets.

Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs President Dan Diker told Fox News Digital, «The real question is why the international media, European powers and social networks were noticeably unsympathetic to Israel and its PM Netanyahu during the Obama and Biden administrations, dressing down and even humiliation of Netanyahu during and in between White House visits, in contrast to the immediate and widespread international sympathy for Zelenskyy following his 100 mph head on collision with and excoriation by President Trump and VP Vance?»

Dicker continued, saying, «Broadcast around the world, we remember Obama’s dumping of the Netanyahu-led delegation to the White House in 2010 and the Biden administration’s overall maximum political pressure campaigns to force Israel to yield to American demands.»

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There are striking parallels between the two countries — Ukraine and Israel — which are at war against anti-democratic regimes. Israel has been waging a multi-front existential war against Iranian regime proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and other forces) since October 2023. Russia invaded Ukraine a little more than three years ago and absorbed a chunk of the country’s territory. Ukraine is fighting for its life.

However, one key difference is the outrage over the White House spat with Zelenskyy was not mirrored in the same way in the court of public opinion after Biden and Obama launched verbal attacks, including profanity-laced tirades, against Netanyahu. 

After the 2024 State of the Union speech, Biden was caught on a hot mic on the House floor, where Biden said he and Netanyahu would have a «come to Jesus» moment soon. 

Biden warned Israel that invading Rafah would be crossing a «red line.» Israel defied Biden and secured the freedom of some hostages held by the Hamas terrorist organization in Rafah.

After Israel entered Rafah, Biden reportedly said of Netanyahu, «He’s a f—ing liar.»

Biden called Netanyahu «a pain in my a–» and  said «he’s been killing me lately.»

According to Politico columnist Jonathan Martin, Biden termed Netanyahu a «bad f—ing guy.» 

BIDEN’S HISTORY OF BERATING, SCOLDING AND INSULTING REPORTERS, FROM ‘STUPID SON OF A B—-’ TO ‘GET EDUCATED’

Then-President Barack Obama, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after making a statement on the killings in the West Bank after their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Sept. 1, 2010 in Washington, D.C. (Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)

Biden’s seemingly relentless attacks on Netanyahu continued with Israel’s self-defensive measures against the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah and its chief strategic partner, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The U.S. government has designated Hezbollah a terrorist entity and classified Iran as the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism.

Reuters reported that «War,» a book by the journalist Bob Woodward, noted that Biden regularly accused Netanyahu of having no strategy and shouted «Bibi, what the f—-?» at him in July after Israeli strikes near Beirut and in Iran.

The Obama administration laid the foundation to delegitimize Netanyahu and create «daylight» between Israel and the United States, argued experts on U.S.-Israel relations.

Obama refused to pose with Netanyahu for photographers during the Israeli leader’s White House visit in 2010 and held a private dinner without the prime minister, which was said to have been a breach of custom.

President Joe Biden, right, shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they meet on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 20, 2023. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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When asked about his alleged conflict-ridden relationship with Netanyahu, Obama said in 2010, «I think that he is dealing with a very complex situation in a very tough neighborhood.  And what I have consistently shared with him is my interest in working with him — not at cross-purposes — so that we can achieve the kind of peace that will ensure Israel’s security for decades to come. 

«And that’s going to mean some tough choices.  And there are going to be times where he and I are having robust discussions about what kind of choices need to be made.»

The Obama administration frequently used anonymous government officials to channel Obama’s views, according to critics. In 2014, the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffery Goldberg reported that an unnamed Obama administration official termed Netanyahu «chickens—» regarding efforts to secure a peace deal with the Palestinians. 

President Donald Trump, center, accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 4, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The strained relations between Obama and Netanyahu reached a head at the end of Obama’s term in December 2016. Obama’s alleged abandonment of Israel at the United Nations by allowing the United Nations Security Council to censure Israel prompted Netanyahu to term the move a «shameful ambush.»

The 2016 U.N. Security Council resolution condemned Israel for building Jewish communities in the West Bank, the historic biblical region known in Israel as Judea and Samaria. 

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Netanyahu’s speeches to the U.S. Congress in 2015 (to argue against Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran) and in 2024 (to defend Israel’s war against the Iran-backed Hamas) ruffled the feathers of the Obama and Biden administrations.

Eugene Kontorovich, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital, «Democrats seethed for years that Netanyahu dared have a different policy than Obama. By this standard, Zelenskyy’s open, argumentative bickering with President Trump and VP Vance at a press event should hang over the former comedian. However, President Trump has already expressed a willingness to reengage.»

Fox News’ Kristine Parks and Reuters contributed to this report.

Palestinos e israelíes, juntos

La crítica de Israel

TEL AVIV, Israel – Last week, an influential group of American Christians publicly reaffirmed the Jewish people’s right to Judea and Samaria as the biblical heartland of Israel. The Judea and Samaria area is more commonly known as the West Bank.

The declaration was unveiled at the annual National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Dallas by American Christian Leaders for Israel and was expected to be signed by 3,000 religious leaders before being delivered to President Donald Trump. 

The push to apply Israeli sovereignty to the area comes after Trump said last month that his administration would make an announcement on the matter in the coming weeks when asked about annexation.

The Oslo Accords, forged under the Clinton administration, divided the West Bank into three regions: Area A, under full Palestinian jurisdiction; Area B, under Palestinian civil administration and Israeli security control; and Area C, under full Israeli authority.

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A 2020 Trump plan, dubbed Peace to Prosperity, envisioned Israel annexing parts of Judea and Samaria, but was shelved in favor of the Abraham Accords, which normalized Jerusalem’s ties with four Arab countries.

«The evangelicals gave Trump the presidency. He will support our position on the Bible and that’s why he chose Mike Huckabee [as ambassador to Jerusalem], who supports Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,» Dr. Mike Evans, founder of Friends of Zion, which boasts just under 30 million members, told Fox News Digital.

The declaration reaffirms «the Jewish people’s inalienable right to the Biblical Heartland of Israel and reject all efforts—both from the United States and the international community—to pressure the Jewish people to relinquish their ancestral homeland in Judea and Samaria.»

The Tomb of Joseph near Shechem (Nablus). Samaria, Jul 6, 2021. (Roee Oz/TPS)

Evans said evangelicals support Israel «because they believe in moral clarity, good versus evil, they are friends of Zion. They see Jews being killed because they’re Jews, not because of land.»

Pastor John Hagee, the influential founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, told Fox News Digital that Evangelicals «know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will always keep His word to the Children of Israel. From beginning to end, the Bible is a Zionist document mandating that all believers stand with, and bless, Israel and her people.

«For almost half a century, I have been preaching the message that Israel does not occupy the land, Israel owns the land, the title deed of which is recorded in the pages of the Bible. The land was endowed by God to the Jewish people for all time,» added Hagee.

Aerial view of Joshua’s Alter in Judea and Samaria, more commonly referred to as the West Bank. (TPS-IL)

Earlier this week, Fox News Digital reported that some Republican lawmakers led by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) urged the president to recognize Judea and Samaria as Israeli territory. Their letter to the president expressed support for Jerusalem applying sovereignty over the area, which the lawmakers said was «the heart of our shared Judeo-Christian heritage.»

Israel’s Parliament Speaker Amir Ohana on Feb. 23 urged the government in Jerusalem to extend sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, saying full control over the region was the «one and only way» to achieve lasting peace.

Another Likud lawmaker, Dan Illouz, told Fox News Digital that Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacre «proved that any withdrawal, any concession, any illusion of coexistence with those who seek our destruction is not just naive—it is suicidal … we withdrew from Gaza, and in return we got Hamas and the massacre of our people. Judea and Samaria cannot become another terror state.»

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President Donald Trump, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu answer questions during a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, 2025. ( REUTERS/Leah Millis)

«A push for sovereignty in Judea and Samaria would be the end of Israel,» Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli lawmaker and an architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, told Fox News Digital. «If Israel were to become a minority of Jews dominating a majority of Palestinians, it would be neither Jewish nor democratic. I don’t believe it could ever happen, but just waving this [idea] is bad enough,» he said.

«The right in Israel believes that Trump would support whatever they demand. But five years ago, he suggested there could be a two-state solution. As such, it is not as clear-cut as it seems,» he added.

Late last month, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to conduct a «massive» counter-terrorism operation in Judea and Samaria after three buses exploded near Tel Aviv, and bombs were found on two others in what is being investigated as a coordinated attack.

Israeli soldiers take part in an operation in Jenin, as it seeks to take out Iranian-backed terror groups. Feb. 24, 2025. (REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta)

«This brutality and forceful displacement of civilians in the West Bank… was never about self-defense, but rather a colonial expansion scheme and an ethnic cleansing campaign,» Ahmad Fattouh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s dominant Fatah faction, told Fox News Digital.

«Annexing the West Bank will set us back to 1948 and destroy any future stability or prospects for peace. Every rational voice understands too well that there is no way forward except the two-state solution; otherwise, it will lead to endless havoc,» he added.

Israel Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, the umbrella group representing Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, is working in conjunction with the government in Jerusalem to push for sovereignty.

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Pastor John Hagee speaks during «March For Israel» at the National Mall on Nov. 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C.

«We started a campaign to push for it, but we won’t do it without the support of the U.S.,» he told Fox News Digital. «Many in the Trump administration are very connected, they know the area, and they believe in our right to this place. They understand that if they want to stabilize the situation, we must have sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.»

«For Israel to be able to continue to survive and thrive along the coastal plain, which produces about 80% of the country’s GDP, then it must keep control of the high grounds in Judea and Samaria,» Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus (ret.), a former IDF international spokesperson and now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.

«If any other entity, Palestinian or otherwise, holds that, it would be used as a way to threaten Israel’s security; its core infrastructure, including Ben-Gurion Airport, and also its population– concentrated in a narrow strip between Haifa [in the north] and Ashdod [in the south]–approximately 15 kilometers wide,» he said.

Palestinian terrorists take up position during a confrontation with the Israeli army in Jenin on July 3, 2023. The Israeli army said it had launched drone strikes in Jenin as part of an «extensive counterterrorism effort.» (Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images)

Another element, Conricus explained, is that some 500,000 Israelis currently live in Judea and Samaria, and they need to be protected.

«The trends of escalation in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem are highest now since Oct. 7. We see significant terrorist activity in almost all Palestinian cities and continued weakness of the P.A. in exercising control,» he said.

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Ze’ev Orenstein, director of international affairs at the Jerusalem-based City of David Foundation, told Fox News Digital that the Jewish people’s millenia-long connection to the Land of Israel bestows upon them an inherent right to Judea and Samaria.

«The reality is that there is likely no other people on the planet today with a deeper–and longer–connection to any piece of land than the Jewish people with the Land of Israel, in general, and Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, in particular; where the inhabitants continue to worship the very same G-d, speak the same language, practice the same faith, celebrate the same festivals, and walk upon the very same stones, as their ancestors did so many thousands of years ago,» Orenstein added.