Netanyahu bet on Trump – but both lost
Israel's political establishment grapples with US voter rejection of White House ally and own contribution towards it.
US President Donald Trump and his Republican party’s resounding midterm defeat has left many in Israel, particularly on the political right, grappling with the scale of the rebuke to those seen as their closest allies in Washington.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly sought to portray himself as almost uniquely qualified to maintain the unflinching support of Trump, who returned to the White House last year promising, among others, to not start “stupid foreign wars that never end”.
Yet in late February, Trump joined Netanyahu in ordering a joint military campaign against Iran, prompting immediate Iranian retaliation and raising the spectre of an all-out regional war. With the prospect of renewed hostilities looming, both leaders exchanged effusive endorsements in the build-up to Tuesday’s US congressional election and Israel’s parliamentary vote last week, calling upon the other’s electorate to head to the polls to support their ally.
On Wednesday, key opposition figure Yair Lapid said almost all of Netanyahu’s actions since the vote, including his call for the internal security service Shin Bet to investigate the leaders of the Arab parties, in conjunction with the US election results, had rendered the prime minister politically noxious.