White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made it clear Monday that the crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations over the issue of a Palestinian state has not dissipated, despite efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify remarks he made late in the election campaign that no such state would be established on his watch.

“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made,” McDonough told the J Street conference in Washington, whose leftist audience received his remarks enthusiastically.