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JERUSALEM — John Kerry has almost certainly been called worse things than a space alien – certainly by Israel’s right-wing camp, where contempt for the U.S. Secretary of State and his failed peacemaking efforts is unabashed.

But when the insult is levelled by the previously supportive Haaretz newspaper, the standard-bearer of the country’s liberal-left, it may be time for him – and by extension, President Barack Obama – to take notice.

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The withering description was coined by Barack Ravid, the paper’s well-informed and normally restrained diplomatic editor, to describe Mr Kerry’s attempts at broking a truce to the bloody conflict in Gaza – rejected by Israel amid widespread mockery.

“It’s as if he isn’t the foreign minister of the world’s most powerful nation, but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast,” wrote Mr Ravid, even while softening his remarks by describing Mr Kerry as “a true friend to Israel”.