Jeb Bush blasts Obama's 'schoolyard antics' with Israel

This post has been updated: 

Jeb Bush criticized President Obama on Wednesday for damaging the U.S. relationship with Israel and for mishandling negotiations with Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions.

"This is no way to treat an ally," Bush said about Israel in a National Review op-ed. "Conducting the foreign policy of a great nation requires maturity and a strategic sense of America's long-term interests. This is no time for schoolyard antics."

The likely GOP presidential candidate's commentary comes a day after Bush distanced himself from remarks made by former secretary of State James Baker, one of his many foreign policy advisers and a longtime family friend.  Baker had criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech Monday to J Street, an advocacy group that calls itself the "political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans."

In his op-ed, Bush decried the Obama administration's "half-hearted congratulations" to Netanyahu upon his election victory last week and suggested they were part of a "pattern of diplomatic scolding of Israel." He also charged Obama with threatening "to downgrade the U.S.-Israel relationship and permit a series of anti-Israel resolutions to pass the United Nations Security Council without firm American opposition."

There have been long-simmering tensions between Obama and Netanyahu, although the president on Tuesday described their relationship as "business-like."

The Obama administration is re-evaluating the U.S. approach in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of Netanyahu's recent comments. The Israeli prime minister has since walked back a comment that a Palestinian state would not happen on his watch, but Obama continues to question Netanyahu's commitment to a two-state solution for peace.

The White House has not said what re-evaluation might mean, including how the Obama administration might react to a Palestinian bid for statehood via the United Nations.

The "possibility seems very dim" for Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side peacefully, Obama said Tuesday at the White House.  "We can't continue to premise our public diplomacy on something that everybody knows is not going to happen, at least in the next several years."

Republicans have seized on the U.S.-led negotiations on Iran's nuclear weapons development — and the threat Iran poses to Israel — as the latest example of what they consider a string of foreign policy missteps by Obama. The issues tied together have become enmeshed in the fledgling presidential race, as candidates seek to establish their bona fides to be the next commander in chief.

Unlike some of his likely GOP rivals, Bush did not explicitly endorse the letter sent by 47 Senate Republicans to Iranian leaders that suggested any agreement with the United States would only be temporary.

Bush cast doubt on the Obama administration's ability to reach a deal that would rein in Iran. He wrote in National Review:

It is clear that nothing — not public opinion, not opposition from his own party in Congress, and not even the facts — will deter President Obama from a potentially risky agreement that may well allow Iran to intimidate the entire Middle East, menace Israel, and, most of all, threaten America.

Contributing: David Jackson