JP Updates reports that in advance of an upcoming interview with President Obama, Israel's Channel 2 interviewed the people closest to the president in recent years to get some insight into what happened to the US-Israel relationship and what was really said behind closed doors.

Among the interviewees was Obama’s close advisor David Axelrod, who said of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he "is a great politician. He knows what he needs to do to get through the next election. But it seems to me that Israel has to think about what they need to do to get through the next generation.”

Axelrod recalled that Obama once complained,

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.

Another interviewee, Martin Indyk, U.S. Special Envoy for the Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014, claimed that “Israelis are ungrateful to this president”:

They never appreciated his rule whereby nothing will harm the security of Israel. Obama did not manage to get that statement out so that the Israelis can really feel it. You are an emotional nation, not a rational nation. You work from your gut and not your mind.

About Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress last March, Indyk said:

The Prime Minister really stuck his finger in President Obama’s eye, and this is a disturbing development. If Israel is really threatened by Iran, Netanyahu had to do things that would ensure the security of Israel, and the first step is to ensure that the relationship with the US is on safe ground. He needs to read the map, because if he fails, he will destroy the relationship, Israel will open a gap between then and their best friend and most important strategic partner.