“American efforts to broker a peace deal in the Middle East were engulfed in a diplomatic row on Tuesday when the US state department lambasted a senior Israeli minister for “offensive and inappropriate” comments describing John Kerry as obsessive and messianic.

Defence minister Moshe Ya’alon, an ally of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, dismissed Kerry’s efforts to pursue a peace deal in private conversations with US and Israeli officials which were reported in an Israeli newspaper.

“Secretary of state John Kerry — who arrived here determined, and who operates from an incomprehensible obsession and a sense of messianism — can’t teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians,” Ya’alon was quoted as saying in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling paper.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

*Read more here from Harriet Sherwood / The Guardian:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/14/u-s-rebukes-israeli-minister-after-offensive-remarks-about-messianic-john-kerry/