An Israeli official has accused Barack Obama of colluding in a “shameful move against Israel at the UN” over a planned security council vote on Israeli illegal settlements, the Guardian reported on Friday.

In striking language underlining the long-running depth of hostility between the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration, the unnamed official accused Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, of “secretly cooking up with Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution”.

The comments emerged in the midst of 24 hours of extraordinary diplomacy that saw the US president-elect, Donald Trump – who has yet to be sworn into office – undermine the foreign policy of a sitting president and intervene to see a vote on the resolution on Thursday evening postponed.

That appears to have been only a temporary respite as it emerged that other members of the security council were pushing ahead with a vote on the same text later on Friday.

Source: MENA