News / Foreign Policy

Machiavellian Netanyahu played Trump using misinformation: Tillerson

Thursday, 19 September 2019 9:31 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 19 September 2019 11:30 PM ]

Former US Secretary of Sate Rex Tillerson

Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has revealed that President Donald Trump was “played” by Machiavellian Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on several occasions.

Tillerson, who served in the Trump administration as the Secretary of State from February 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, recounted on Tuesday during a panel interview with Harvard professors how Netanyahu would use “misinformation” to trick Trump, whom Tillerson had on one occasion allegedly called a moron.

“They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,” Tillerson noted.

"We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played,’” explained Tillerson.

He added, “It bothers me that an ally that’s that close and important to us would do that to us.”

Tillerson warned that exercising skepticism was necessary when dealing with Netanyahu,

Netanyahu is “a bit Machiavellian,” he told the panel. “In dealing with Bibi, it’s always useful to carry a healthy amount of skepticism in your discussions with him.”

The former top US diplomat and CEO of ExxonMobil had previously revealed that he was also at loggerheads with Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, who was secretly conducting diplomatic talks on sensitive matters in the Middle East.

PressTV-Tillerson says Kushner bypassed him in US foreign policy

A prominent human rights group says the U-S government’s tough policies on migrants are leading to their deaths.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu, who is a close ally of Trump, faces an uncertain future due to his failure in winning the Israeli elections.

Palestinians joined by Muslims from across the globe have condemned the Israeli occupation.

It makes no difference to them which party wins in the Israeli elections since both Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party and his main challenger centrist Benny Gantz of the Blue and White alliance, both back the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

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