Obama Threatens to Allow UN Palestinian Vote

President Barack Obama is floating the possibility of a vote on a Palestinian state at the United Nations.

The president told Israel's Channel 2 that in the past the United States has blocked such a vote to allow the Israelis and Palestinians to work things out for themselves.

But he said it will be hard to keep doing that if no one believes the Israelis are negotiating in good faith.

"I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is somebody who's predisposed to think of security first, to think perhaps that peace is naive; to see the worst possibilities as opposed to the best possibilities in Arab partners or Palestinian partners," the Washington Post quoted Obama.

The Israeli station also talked to some of Obama's former advisers.

One of them, David Axelrod, said Obama once told him, 'You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office. For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic - it hurts.'"

Meanwhile, a Democratic strategist with close ties to the White House expressed puzzlement over the president's harsh stance with the Jewish state, specifically Israel's prime minister.

"These kind of attacks don't really hurt him (Netanyahu). They help him," the strategist told the Los Angeles Times.