Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has boasted about how he has defied the United States by building Jewish squatter colonies “in a smart way, in a quiet way”, +972 Magazine’s Noam Sheizaf reports.

Addressing young Likud supporters, Netanyahu said: “I was threatened in Washington: ‘not one brick’ [of Jewish squatter colony construction]… after five years, we built a little more than one brick…”

Asked “about peace talks with the Palestinians”, Netanyahu joked: “about the – what?” to which the audience responded by breaking out into laughter.

According to Sheizaf, Netanyahu’s quotes were posted online by Akiva Lamm, a Likud member from Kiryat Arba, a Jewish squatter colony near Hebron. Sheizaf reports that Lamm had asked Netanyahu a question on the lack of new construction in his home squatter colony, and on Israel’s prisoner releases during the American-led negotiations with the Palestinians. This was Netanyahu’s reply – as translated by Sheizaf:

When I entered the Prime Minister’s Office for my second term, I was summoned to Washington. “Not one brick,” they told me [referring to squatter colony construction in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem]. I was threatened specifically: “Not one brick.” The pressure from the international community and the Americans was enormous. I don’t think anyone in Israel was under such pressure. And still, after five years on the job, we built a little more than “one brick”. But the important thing is to do it in a smart way, in a quiet way, without inflammatory statements. Do you think it’s a problem for me to say, “I am a hero, I am strong, I don’t care about anything, what do I care what the world says?’” I don’t have any problem saying that, but it would be a lie. Whoever tells you that doesn’t deserve to be prime minister; he is a populist. This is not a feature leader. A leader knows to stand up to international pressure by manoeuvring. Imagine yourself standing on a hill overlooking the whole valley. You get to see all the obstacles below from above – some from the right and some from the left – and then when you walk down, you know exactly where to go in order to avoid the obstacles. What matters is that we continue to head straight toward our goal, even if one time we walk right and another time walk left.

Sheizaf relates that Netanyahu then went on to speak about how important US support is, and how well his speeches were received by the US Congress. This, he said, reminded Lamm of similar remarks Netanyahu made 10 years ago, when he explained how he was able to manipulate the Clinton administration and debunk the Oslo accords.

What will it take for the American people to wake up and realize that Israel is not only devouring their hard-earned tax dollars to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, but, for gratitude, is spitting in their faces and boasting about taking the US for a ride?