Hot mic catches Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu bashing European Union

Well, this is embarrassing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught on a hot mic Wednesday morning trashing European Union policies toward Israel during a closed-door meeting with the leaders of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia.

“The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, that produces technology and every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it,” Netanyahu ranted to the other leaders.

He’d evidently assumed the conversation was off the record, but it was instead being broadcast, through headphones, to waiting reporters. It was first reported by the Israeli press.

“It’s crazy. It’s actually crazy,” he added, apparently referring to EU policies that try to place economic pressure on Israel to leave the occupied Palestinian territories and restart the moribund peace process.

It was a particularly mortifying moment for a leader under fire at home in Israel for allegations of corruption and for cozying up to the increasingly authoritarian, and nativist, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has himself been accused of ignoring a growing anti-Semitism problem in Hungary. Netanyahu was widely criticized in the Israeli press for visiting Hungary on this trip to Europe. He is the first Israeli prime minister to do so since 1989.

“It’s not about my interest. I’m talking about Europe’s interest,” Netanyahu continued. He went on to describe why he saw the need for a change of tack on Israel policy in Europe:

I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear. I am not very politically correct. I know that’s a shock to some of you. It’s a joke. But the truth is the truth. Both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy toward Israel.

We are part of the European culture. Europe ends in Israel. East of Israel, there is no more Europe. We have no greater friends than the Christians who support Israel around the world. Not only the evangelists. If I go to Brazil, I’ll be greeted there with more enthusiasm than at the Likud party center.

In the few minutes of talk caught by reporters before someone mercifully stopped the transmission, Netanyahu also candidly spoke of Israel’s shifting US relationship: “We had a big problem” in the United States, he said, speaking of the Obama administration. “I think it’s different now. Vis-à-vis Iran, there is a stronger position. The US is more engaged in the region and conducting more bombings [in Syria]. It is a positive thing. I think we’re okay on ISIS. We’re not okay on Iran.”

Netanyahu also admitted that Israeli airstrikes have targeted Hezbollah-bound convoys traveling through Syria “dozens and dozens of times.”

The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz has helpfully uploaded a chunk of the audio to YouTube, for your listening pleasure:

It’s common knowledge that leaders chat more freely behind closed doors than they do before the press. Indeed, such backroom camaraderie can be helpful in building coalitions and addressing world problems. It’s unusual, however, to hear a world leader so blatantly seeking to sow divisiveness in a crowd of new friends. Perhaps President Donald Trump’s more freewheeling, aggressive approach to foreign policy is rubbing off on his friend Netanyahu.