Trump Assails Obama Over U.N. Action on Israeli Settlements

President-elect Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., last week.CreditKevin D. Liles for The New York Times

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald J. Trump lashed out at President Obama on Wednesday for what he called the administration’s failure to support Israel at the United Nations, saying the United States had treated its ally in the Middle East with “total disdain and disrespect.”

In two Twitter posts, the president-elect assailed the Obama administration for its decision last week to abstain from a resolution condemning Israeli construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts came just hours before Secretary of State John Kerry was expected to deliver a speech in Washington responding to that criticism.

Mr. Trump had pressured Mr. Obama to veto the United Nations resolution, injecting himself directly into American foreign policy before he assumes power next month. But the forceful intervention, including a discussion with Egypt’s president, failed to prevent passage of the resolution.

Wednesday’s comments repeated Mr. Trump’s assertion that American policy toward Israel will change drastically once he replaces Mr. Obama in the Oval Office. Last week, the president-elect described the United Nations as a “club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” He called that “So sad!” but vowed to negotiate peace in the Middle East despite the last-minute actions of Mr. Obama’s administration.

Mr. Trump’s comments about Israel came after another Twitter post in which the president-elect complained about what he called inflammatory “statements and roadblocks” from Mr. Obama, suggesting that whatever good will existed between the two men immediately after the election had disappeared.

It was not clear exactly what Mr. Trump was referring to. In a speech on Tuesday in Hawaii to commemorate the attacks on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, Mr. Obama appeared to take a veiled swipe at the way Mr. Trump campaigned for president, saying that “even when hatred burns hottest and the tug of tribalism is at the most primal, we must resist the urge to turn in. We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different.”

And in an interview with David Axelrod, his former senior adviser, Mr. Obama said last week that he believed he would have defeated Mr. Trump if the Constitution allowed him to run for a third term.

That claim annoyed Mr. Trump, who posted several Twitter messages over the last several days taking issue with it. In one, he noted that Mr. Obama had personally campaigned in swing states that Mr. Trump ended up winning. In another, he insisted that voters would have turned against Mr. Obama because of concern over jobs, the Affordable Care Act and terrorism.

P.C: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/us/politics/donald-trump-united-nations-israel.html?_r=0