{"id":32238,"date":"2019-02-07T20:23:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T20:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32238"},"modified":"2019-02-07T20:23:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T20:23:02","slug":"netanyahu-channeling-trump-in-israels-election-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32238","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu channeling Trump in Israel\u2019s election campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJERUSALEM: Seeking re-election under a cloud of criminal investigations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks to be channeling his inner Donald Trump in an angry campaign against perceived domestic enemies.
Drawing clear inspiration from Trump, Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party has plastered huge billboards of the two leaders together and launched a Trump-like weekly webcast to counter what it calls the \u201cfake news\u201d industry.
The campaign reflects Trump\u2019s popularity in Israel, one of the few countries where an alliance with the bombastic American president is considered a political asset. But it also risks undermining the traditional bipartisan support for Israel among Americans.
Despite his troubles at home, Trump has earned the appreciation of most Israelis by recognizing Jerusalem as their capital and moving the US Embassy there. Trump has further impressed Israelis by backing out of the international nuclear deal with Iran, re-imposing stiff sanctions on the Islamic Republic and vigorously defending Israel in international forums.
\u201cThis administration, not just Trump, has been the friendliest administration to Israel since 1948,\u201d said Michael Oren, a deputy minister and former ambassador to Washington. \u201cNetanyahu is just tapping into these current global trends of people living in a world of uncertainty who want strong, sometimes brutally strong, leaders.\u201d
Netanyahu and Trump enjoy strong personal rapport. Netanyahu also seems to relish the American president\u2019s attitude toward the Middle East, not only on Iran but also his hands-off approach to the Palestinian issue and Israeli settlement construction. After an icy eight-year relationship with Barack Obama, Netanyahu has gone out of his way to praise Trump at every turn.
He also has held his tongue on Trump\u2019s various scandals, even after a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Trump appeared to defend the actions of white supremacists. On a visit to Washington, Netanyahu even implored critics to stop questioning Trump over the supposed anti-Semitism of some of his supporters.
While Trump\u2019s isolationism, particularly his planned pullout from Syria, may not be good for Israel, his unabashed pro-Israel rhetoric has made him popular domestically, said Nahum Barnea, one of Israel\u2019s most influential columnists.
Beyond a confluence of interests, Trump and Netanyahu seem to share a populist streak against their countries\u2019 more liberal establishments \u2014 to the delight of their nationalist bases.
Netanyahu has responded to a series of corruption investigations with Trump-like attacks on Israeli media, law-enforcement, judiciary and other \u201celites\u201d he believes are bent on his removal. He is quick to deride any critic as a \u201cleftist,\u201d and, like Trump, has taken to social media to whip up his base.
\u201cNetanyahu is a person who knows how to learn and imitate others and he\u2019s been doing it in the past two-three years since Trump rose to power,\u201d said Barnea. \u201cHe\u2019s been far harsher in his domestic expressions and he knows that you create a political victory by pitting one sector against another.\u201d
Trump, who endorsed Netanyahu in a fawning pre-Israeli election clip in 2013 \u2014 even before he got into politics \u2014 appears to equally admire the Israeli leader.
On Instagram, Trump shared an image of the giant billboard over the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv featuring the two smiling and shaking hands under the slogan \u201cNetanyahu. In a different league.\u201d
More significantly, he is expected to host Netanyahu in a lavish state visit to Washington shortly before the April 9 election in Israel.
In response to the billboard ads, Valerie O\u2019Brien, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Israel, clarified that the US was \u201cnot involved in Likud\u2019s campaign messages or strategy.\u201d
While beneficial in the short-term, some warn the tight alignment with Trump could have negative long-term implications.
Israel, once a source of solid bipartisan support, has become an increasingly divisive issue among Americans in recent years. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center last year, for instance, found Republicans more sympathetic to Israel than Democrats by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. Some fear an eventual backlash from Democrats.
\u201cThe more that\u00a0Democrats don\u2019t like Trump, the more … he associates himself with, in this case Netanyahu, gets drawn into that equation,\u201d said Ron Klein, a former congressman who now chairs the Jewish Democratic Council of America. \u201cFor those of us who are pro-Israel, that\u2019s unhealthy.\u201d
Netanyahu is not alone in tapping into Trump\u2019s appeal.
Likud backbencher Oren Hazan recently said the highlight of his term was the selfie he took with Trump during a 2017 visit. Even Netanyahu\u2019s top challenger, former military chief Benny Gantz, chose a campaign slogan \u2014 \u201cIsrael Before Everything\u201d \u2014 that many viewed as echoing \u201cAmerica First.\u201d
But only Netanyahu has molded his politics in Trump\u2019s image.
He has long had a rocky relationship with the media and accuses it, along with police and prosecutors, of being part of a \u201cleftist\u201d witch hunt to force him from office. Like Trump, he has also gone after former allies, floating conspiracy theories about an alleged planned putsch by a Likud rival.
The prime minister appears to be modeling his recent launch of \u201cLikud TV\u201d on Trump\u2019s \u201cReal News Update,\u201d a weekly webcast on Facebook hosted by the president\u2019s daughter-in-law to counterbalance what the administration deems a hostile media. Netanyahu\u2019s first clip made dismissive references about police investigations into alleged corruption by the prime minister.
Police have recommended indicting Netanyahu on three corruption cases, and Israel\u2019s attorney general is expected to announce his decision whether to charge him before the elections.
Back in 2009, it was Obama who offered inspiration to Israeli campaigners. An ultra-Orthodox Jewish party translated \u201cyes we can\u201d into its campaign slogan and Netanyahu designed his Web page after Obama\u2019s. But a decade later, Trump is the hot commodity.
\u201cIt\u2019s part of the Americanization of our politics. The difference is that Israeli campaigns stole tactics from Obama but still maintained a certain distance from him,\u201d said Barnea. \u201cTrump is considered \u2018one of us.\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM: Seeking re-election under a cloud of criminal investigations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks to be channeling his inner Donald Trump in an angry campaign against perceived domestic enemies.Drawing clear inspiration from Trump, Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party has plastered huge billboards of the two leaders together and launched a Trump-like weekly webcast to counter what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}