We don’t know if Trump loves or hates Netanyahu, and there’s the rub for the PM

Analysis

The premier long claimed, credibly, that he uniquely understood the US. Now, his greatest American ally ever is belittling him over and over, right as an election approaches

By Ben Sales

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Ben Sales is a news editor at The Times of Israel

In late October 2014, a remarkable transatlantic phone call took place.

Earlier that week, an anonymous official in the Obama White House had sparked a tempest in US-Israel relations by telling The Atlantic, “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit.”

The resulting news cycle lasted days. The White House publicly denounced the comments about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “inappropriate and counterproductive.” US Secretary of State John Kerry called them “disgraceful, unacceptable, and damaging.” Finally, Kerry phoned Netanyahu to apologize on behalf of the staffer.

Now, here we are, almost 12 years later, with a US president who openly, unabashedly calls Netanyahu “fucking crazy,” gripes that he has “no fucking judgement,” and calls him “very difficult.” And the list goes on.

None of Donald Trump’s individual insults has had a lasting impact on the public, simply because there are so many of them.

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The contrast between the two eras could be taken as evidence of many things: how Trump has pulverized norms of political discourse; how Netanyahu and his circle hold Republicans and Democrats to different standards; and how, simply, Netanyahu has been in power for a very long time.

For Netanyahu, however, the problem posed by Trump’s comments is more immediate and more personal. For years, he’s based his personal foreign policy chops largely on the claim that he alone is close to Trump. Now, Trump has provided ample fodder to undercut that claim, right as Netanyahu is facing a bruising election campaign and emerging from a war that, at best, has ended inconclusively.

It’s possible that Trump still likes Netanyahu despite the invective. After all, the president is a champion of flattery as well as humiliation. One could easily make the case that he loves, or hates, the prime minister. For Netanyahu, that’s exactly the problem.

Netanyahu, who famously attended high school in the United States, lived there as an adult and speaks fluent, idiomatic American English, has long claimed that he uniquely knows how to operate in Washington, DC. In a famous — or, depending on one’s view, infamous — recording from 2001, Netanyahu boasted, “I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction.”

For much of his career, Netanyahu could back up that cockiness with receipts. While he didn’t win every battle, he went toe to toe with presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, stymied or scaled back repeated attempts to persuade Israel into territorial concessions, addressed the US Congress again and again, and (mostly) managed to maintain favorable polling numbers among American voters.

Then came Trump’s first term in office, and it was like a bonanza for Netanyahu: The US moved its embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and brokered normalization between Israel and several Arab countries.

When Netanyahu brazenly used building-length ads featuring Trump’s visage in his 2019 election campaign, it may have broken a political norm. But few questioned the idea that the two men were allies.

Trump’s second term in office, at first, felt like more of the same, the partnership culminating with the US and Israel jointly launching a war, for the first time ever, against Israel’s chief regional adversary.

Since then, however, the two men’s relationship has clearly become strained. Trump has said plenty of nice things about Netanyahu and has aggressively pushed President Isaac Herzog to issue a pardon in the prime minister’s long-running corruption trial.

But he’s also bashed Netanyahu over and over, even mixing praise with damning words. Last week, he said Netanyahu had had an “incredible career.” But that comment came in the context of Trump musing that perhaps Netanyahu shouldn’t even run for reelection — hardly a resounding endorsement.

Throughout it all, Netanyahu’s party has continued to run on his purportedly unparalleled understanding of the United States, with a senior aide recently releasing an ad mocking the English-language skills of rival candidate Gadi Eisenkot.

But Netanyahu can no longer claim bipartisan support in the US Congress, where praise from Democrats, and even some Republicans, has become a thing of the past. His favorability ratings in the US are deep underwater.

And now, he has to contend with his greatest American ally belittling him over and over. Seven years after the pro-Netanyahu campaign ads featuring Trump, it’s easy to imagine one of his opponents airing an attack ad against the prime minister composed solely of things Trump has said about him.

Trump may yet help him win another election. If and when the dust settles from the Iran war, the US president may go back to praising Netanyahu, and finding ways to stage a few more grinning photo ops.

Perhaps the best Netanyahu can still hope for is that, by the time the elections are held in October, the profanity-laced insults will recede somewhat in voters’ memories.

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