AN opposition Israeli politician has called on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismiss his ambassador to the United States for failing to report sexual assault allegations against a top Netanyahu aide.

Karin Elharrar said Ron Dermer should be recalled from Washington for not reporting the warnings he received about David Keyes, Netanyahu’s spokesman to foreign media.

Last week, Julia Salazar, a candidate for New York’s state senate, accused Keyes of sexually assaulting her five years ago.

Wall Street Journal reporter Shayndi Raice tweeted she too had a “terrible encounter” with Keyes before he became Netanyahu’s spokesman, describing him as a “predator” and someone who had “absolutely no conception of the word ‘no’”.

At least a dozen other women have since come forward with varying allegations, some of which are

said to have been committed since Keyes took up his current position in early 2016.

Keyes, 34, denies the allegations, saying all “are deeply misleading and many of them are categorically false”.

But the scandal has since spread to the rest of Netanyahu’s inner circle, previously rocked with accusations of sexual improprieties.

Natan Eshel, a former top aide, was forced to resign in 2012 after allegations emerged that he harassed a woman in the prime minister’s office, including taking pictures up her skirt.

Over the weekend, Dermer, who was perhaps Netanyahu’s closest associate before taking office in Washington, confirmed he was warned in late 2016 by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, then of the Wall Street Journal, about Keyes’ questionable behaviour toward women.

The New York Times reported that Stephens, who said he had barred Keyes from visiting the Wall Street Journal offices because of harassment complaints of women there against him, warned

Dermer that “Keyes posed a riskto women in Israeli government offices”.