Trump Could Be Israels Worst Nightmare [View all]

[applegrove]

By GREGG CARLSTROM at Politico

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/trump-israel-worst-nightmare-netanyahu-214565

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At the same time, the United States has evolved too. Support for Israel used to be a bipartisan certainty. But today, largely thanks to Israel’s rightward shift, both Democrats and Jews are less inclined to reflexively support their longtime ally. For all the outrage in Israel, Obama’s vote at the U.N.—though symbolic—was actually aligned with the views of his constituents.

Netanyahu has accordingly dropped any pretense of cordiality with the outgoing president and his supporters; he is openly counting the days until January 20. (One lawmaker literally called Donald Trump the Messiah, come to save the Jewish people.) “The resolution that was passed at the U.N. yesterday is part of the swan song of the old world that is biased against Israel,” Netanyahu said in a vitriolic speech on Saturday. “But, my friends, we are entering a new era. And just as President-elect Trump said yesterday, it will happen much sooner than you think.”

But the embrace of Trump and the belligerence toward the rest of the world that Netanyahu is using to woo right-wing voters carries a profound risk. Israel is betting all its chips on an unpopular, untested president with no knowledge of the region and a history of breaking his campaign promises. If he does renege, Israel will find itself even more isolated.

And if he keeps his word—if Trump governs the way he campaigned—then he will promote policies that are deeply unpopular with many Americans, including American Jews. Implausible as it sounds, it may be Trump and Netanyahu, two men who profess to be Israel’s strongest defenders, who definitively shatter the “unbreakable alliance” and rupture the decades-old bipartisan consensus on Israel.


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