President-elect Donald Trump may become further aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the White House's abstention from a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israel over settlement construction, Sen. Chris Murphy says.
"Maybe this is the natural extension of what has been a very dysfunctional relationship. My worry, though, is that this, in the end, may have the very opposite effect that [President Barack] Obama and [Secretary of State John] Kerry hope," Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"It may be pushing Donald Trump further and further into Netanyahu's camp such that he's not going to be able to be an honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
"So in the long run, this may actually be counterproductive to the sort of goals and precepts of Kerry's speech yesterday."
On Wednesday, Kerry charged Netanyahu of jeopardizing any possibility of a peaceful two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians with the Jewish State's settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem.
Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added that the UN is "just fundamentally not a fair forum for the Israelis."