US elections: Netanyahu’s fears and wise judgment
Analysis: While the prime minister is said to fear that neither presidential candidate can be counted upon to protect Israel’s vital interests, he suspects that Trump might be the more dependable ally.
While Mr. Netanyahu is said to fear that neither party’s nominee can be counted upon to protect Israel’s vital interests, he suspects that Trump might be the more dependable ally. After all, Trump, unlike Mrs. Clinton, has vowed to move America’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Although few political analysts take that pledge seriously, Donald Trump’s strongly pro-Israeli statements, the GOP’s slavishly pro-Israeli platform, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the huge financial support that Trump has received from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s biggest financial backers, have led Mr. Netanyahu, if not a majority of Israelis, to conclude that a President Trump might not be such a disaster for the Jewish state.
A poll published Friday found that many more Israelis prefer Clinton to Trump. Some 49 percent of the 500 Israelis surveyed said they considered the former secretary of state the superior candidate. Only 32 percent preferred Trump, according to an Israel Radio report. American Jews are even more solidly pro-Hillary. Mrs. Clinton is seen by many as a “known quantity.” Although personal relations between Netanyahu and Obama have repeatedly been strained, ties between Israeli and American intelligence, defense, and national security agencies are stronger than ever. Clinton, moreover, is seen as a steady hand, more pro-Israeli and tougher on Middle Eastern Islamists than Barack Obama. Above all, given her vast government experience, she is seen as predictable.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, is the opposite. His policies are all over the ideological map. Espousing ever shifting, contradictory views, his ignorance of basic tenets of foreign affairs have proven even more shocking than his unorthodox positions– such as his praise for Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a strong leader.
Although Trump has vowed to be “great for Israel,” skeptics remember his earlier pledge to be “neutral” on the Israel-Palestine issue. Several Jews who attended his speech last December to the Republican Jewish Coalition saw his claim that many members wouldn’t support him because he was rich and didn’t need their support as reinforcing Jewish stereotypes. And many American and Israeli Jews are exceedingly wary of, and deeply alarmed by the strong support that Trump has received from the anti-Semitic Ku Klux Klan and other right-wing fanatics, his racist remarks about Mexicans, and his assault on female critics as “pigs” and “dogs.”
On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel-US ties would remain strong no matter who won Tuesday’s election, and that despite tension with the Obama’s administration over the past eight years, relations with Washington were “solid” and would remain so. But he has also drawn the same conclusion that others have drawn about Mr. Obama’s effort to withdraw from America’s intense involvement in the Arab Middle East and focus more on issues at home. While tradition, aid, and democracy assure that Washington is likely to remain Israel’s closest ally, Netanyahu has reached out to Russia, China and other states to enhance Israeli ties and profile there. That, too, reflects a wise judgment about America’s isolationist mood.
Judith Miller is a senior American commentator on security affairs.
