US President Donald Trump got “played” with misinformation by Israeli officials including PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who’d take liberties with the truth if it would sway the US, according to ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The embattled Israeli leader is “an extraordinarily skilled” politician, but “a bit Machiavellian,” Tillerson told an audience at Harvard University on Tuesday in a private panel discussion.

In dealing with Bibi, it’s always useful to carry a healthy amount of skepticism in your discussions with him.

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Netanyahu and other Israeli officials would share “misinformation” if they thought it would persuade the US of something, Tillerson continued. “They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys.’ We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played.’”

It bothers me that an ally that’s that close and important to us would do that to us.

Tillerson lamented that he was shoved out of the way regarding Middle East policy so that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner could draft the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, the unveiling of which may be postponed yet again as Netanyahu seemingly failed to secure another term as PM.

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Netanyahu hit back on Twitter against Tillerson’s characterization on Thursday, reminding him that “Israel *is* the good guy.” The PM is reportedly being excluded from discussions on forming Israel’s new government after his Likud party was narrowly defeated in Tuesday’s elections after Blue & White standard-bearer Benny Gantz pledged to form a “broad and liberal unity government” that doesn’t include Netanyahu.

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