Trump, Israeli leader have mutually beneficial relationship
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was glowing as he
stepped up to a podium in the backyard of his Jerusalem home to welcome US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to a holiday dinner.
Less than an hour earlier, President Donald Trump had
surprised the world by announcing that the US would reverse policy and
recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that
Israel seized from Syria after the Six-Day War of 1967.
Senior US and Israeli officials had been told privately that
such an announcement was in the works, but that it wouldn’t come until
Netanyahu visited Washington next week.
Instead, Trump abruptly tweeted the news, delaying the
Thursday dinner celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim so Netanyahu could call
the president to thank him.
“We have a miracle of Purim,” Netanyahu said, beaming
broadly at his wife, Sarah, the secretary of state and US Ambassador to Israel
David Friedman, as they sat outside on a chilly evening. “President Trump has
just made history.”
The effusive praise of Trump by Netanyahu is characteristic
of their mutually beneficial relationship, more pronounced than perhaps any
previous alliance between leaders of the two countries, AP reported. The surprise
recognition of the Golan was just the most recent of many examples.
“The Trump-Netanyahu relationship has no precedent,” said
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul-general in New York. “They see eye to
eye.”
Their unusual connection began as soon as Trump took office,
when Netanyahu was among the first foreign leaders to visit the White House.
Trump appreciates the praise Netanyahu has lavished upon him — compared with
the more restrained reaction from other foreign leaders. And boosting Israel plays
well with his political base, which is heavy with conservative Christians who
see it as a top priority. Trump has deputized son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose
family has longstanding personal ties to Netanyahu, to work on a Middle East
peace plan, though details of that strategy remain unclear.
The value of the Golan announcement for Netanyahu appeared
obvious at the backyard podium at the Purim dinner. He exuded a confidence that
belied whatever concerns he may have about a series of corruption scandals and
looming possible criminal charges that have engulfed him in recent months and
turned Israel’s April 9 election into an unexpectedly close race between him
and a popular former military chief. Netanyahu has denied all charges.
“For those on the fence, it will enhance his standing for
sure,” said Eytan Gilboa, professor of politics at Bar-Ilan University. “The
Golan Heights recognition, warm White House reception, personal dinner with
Trump. It will both divert attention away from his pressing domestic concerns
and make him appear as a great world leader.”
Their relationship will be on display again this coming
week. Netanyahu will be in Washington for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee annual conference and will be hosted at the White House for a meeting
and a dinner – his third trip there since Trump took over.
Even before the Golan move, Trump has repeatedly and
radically altered US policies related to Israel, siding with Netanyahu at the
expense of the Palestinians and to the dismay of longtime US allies in Europe
and others.
He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the US
Embassy from Tel Aviv, eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the
Palestinians, closed their representative office in Washington, and ended the
decades-long practice of opposing Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank
in what would be the core of a future Palestinian state.
Trump also withdrew from the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear
deal, which Netanyahu had fiercely opposed, and re-imposed stringent new
sanctions on the country that Israel regards as an existential threat. And he
pulled the US out of several UN organizations, the UN Human Rights Council and
UNESCO, citing anti-Israel bias in their agendas.
But their association has not helped Trump win over Jewish
American voters, and has complicated Netanyahu’s relationship with the American
Jewish community, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Many have expressed
dismay over Netanyahu’s close ties with the president.
And Trump has used his Israel policies to needle his
Democratic opponents. He routinely cites his support of Israel, not to mention
his friendship with Netanyahu, as proof that critics are wrong when they say he
fails to denounce white nationalism or anti-Semitism. And, he has used it as a
cudgel to bash Democrats who are not in lockstep with his policies.
“The Democrats have very much proven to be anti-Israel,”
Trump said Friday. “There’s no question about that. And it’s a disgrace. I
mean, I don’t know what’s happened to them but they are totally anti-Israel.
Frankly, I think they’re anti-Jewish.”
A strong majority of American Jews supported Democrats in
the midterms and in 2016, but the party is divided over the US-Israeli
relationship. That came to a head last month, when freshman Democratic Rep.
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, one of the first Muslim women in Congress, insinuated
that lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were
paying lawmakers to support Israel, a remark that drew bipartisan criticism.
Nearly all of the declared 2020 Democratic presidential
candidates, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke and
Kamala Harris, have said they won’t attend the AIPAC conference this year,
though other prominent party officials will be there.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel
organization, said the Trump-Netanyahu alliance has tested the committee’s
traditional commitment to bipartisanship. J Street has encouraged Democrats who
attend the upcoming AIPAC conference to use the stage to denounce Netanyahu’s
hardline policies.
“When your role as an organization is to support those in
power, you end up getting dragged along,” he said.