(JTA) — U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor’s promise that the new GOP majority will "serve as a check" on the Obama administration was "not in relation to U.S.-Israel relations," his spokesman said.
Brad Dayspring told The Washington Post Monday that the comment last week by Cantor (R-Va.), the putative leader of the House of Representatives, to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been misinterpreted to refer to Israel.
According to a statement released by Cantor’s office, the congressman told Netanyahu in a meeting that "the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the administration and what has been, up until this point, one-party rule in Washington. He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other."
Cantor’s Republican Party swept midterm elections earlier this month for the House.
Such meetings with opposition leaders are unusual, and Cantor’s office at the time cast it as a get-together between two men with a longstanding relationship.
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