Obama, Sarkozy Overheard Dissing Netanyahu

Safe to say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t the most popular guy in the world leader club.

Several outlets are reporting that President Obama and French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy were overheard grousing about their Israeli counterpart in what they thought was a private conversation following a press conference at the G20 economic summit last week. Unfortunately, their microphones were still on, so the exchange was broadcast to the headphones of several reporters in a different room.

First Obama sniped at Sarkozy for not telling him France was going to vote for Palestinian membership in UNESCO. Sarkozy turned the topic to Netanyahu.

“I cannot bear him. He’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama, according to Reuters.

The U.S. president shot back, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

Media outlets initially didn’t report the exchange, considering it off-the-record. But a French website, Arret sur Images, posted it on Monday, and Israeli media ran with the story.

Reuters confirmed it, adding, “The technical gaffe is likely to cause great embarrassment to all three leaders as they look to work together to intensify international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions.”

Obama’s critics on the right are already using it as fodder to attack Obama as a weak ally to Israel.