The domestic tensions have also drawn the attention of the United States. In a rare intervention in Israeli political affairs, President Biden, like Mr. Herzog, has called for efforts to reach a consensus.
The American ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides, over the weekend told The Axe Files, a CNN podcast, “We’re telling the prime minister, as I tell my kids, pump the brakes, slow down, try to get a consensus, bring the parties together.”
He said that he had told Mr. Netanyahu, “We can’t spend time with things we want to work on together if your backyard’s on fire,” referring to the U.S. support that Israel is seeking on issues such as curbing Iran’s nuclear program and Mr. Netanyahu’s ambitions to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
Amichai Chikli, an Israeli cabinet minister responsible for relations with the Jewish diaspora, responded bluntly to Mr. Nides in an interview with Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, on Sunday. “I tell the American ambassador, ‘You pump the brakes,’” he said, adding, “Mind your own business.”
Working relations between Israel and the United States remained on track, however.
On Monday, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced that Israel had informed the United States that in the coming months it would hold off retroactively authorizing any more Jewish settlement outposts that were erected without government permission in the occupied West Bank, beyond the nine such communities that were authorized last week.
The announcement, a week after Israel said that it would also approve the construction of 10,000 housing units in the settlements, came amid a broader U.S. effort to lower diplomatic and security tensions between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Most countries consider all Israeli settlement in the West Bank a violation of international law.
