NEW YORK – Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz blasted the Obama administration’s treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he pitched his candidacy in a front of a skeptic crowd of hundreds of New York Republicans on Thursday.

“For seven years, we’ve seen an administration that abandons our friends and allies, and that shows weakness and
appeasement to our enemies,” Cruz said during a speech at the New York State GOP gala at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan. “Three years ago, I was at this dinner. If I just suggested at this dinner three years ago that the elected prime minister of Israel would come to the United States would address a joint session of Congress and he would be boycotted by the President the United States, the Vice President of the United States, and every member of the cabinet, that would have been laughed at. That could not possibly be true.” surely we were not living in

Cruz described  Netanyahu’s speech to Congress as “positively Churchillian.”

“We have a president who insults and ridicules the Prime Minister of Israel,” he continued. “We have a president who celebrates a nuclear deal with Iran, that I believe poses the single greatest threat to our national security of anything in the world. My opponents in this race – all four of them – pledged to maintain that Iranian nuclear deal. One of them (Donald Trump) says he’ll re-negotiated. Well, let me be very clear: As president, on the very first day in office, I will rip to shreds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.”

“We have a president who insults and ridicules the Prime Minister of Israel,” he continued. “We have a president who celebrates a nuclear deal with Iran, that I believe poses the single greatest threat to our national security of anything in the world. My opponents in this race – all four of them – pledged to maintain that Iranian nuclear deal. One of them (Donald Trump) says he’ll re-negotiated. Well, let me be very clear: As president, on the very first day in office, I will rip to shreds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.”

Earlier in the program, Donald Trump and John Kasich both criticized Cruz over his comments on New York values.

The New York primary presidential is next Tuesday.