Trump and Netanyahu call it off

Donald Trump’s postponement of his trip to Israel in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu’s criticism of him is big news today.

Here’s Donald Trump’s tweet from 7 a.m. this morning:

That follows this tweet from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last night:

So Donald Trump did the impossible: managed to make Israel look good! Netanyahu wrote:

Though the PM was careful to get in a knock at Islam:

Netanyahu also said that he had agreed to meet with Trump because he’ll meet with any US candidate.

Here’s our piece showing that Israeli policies are just as racist as the ones that Trump is proposing re Muslims. Here’s Mairav Zonszein’s piece on the same subject, showing the endorsement by Israeli politicians right and left of policies that explicitly discriminate against Palestinians. Here’s Yousef Munayyer’s observation of the similarity of the politicians’ appeals:

Here’s Trump’s announcement last week that he would be going to Israel:

I actually– he asked me to make a commercial during his election run. And I made a commercial. Meaning, I said nice things about him. He’s a good man, he’s worked very hard, he has absolutely no support from President Obama. Absolutely none. So I will tell you I am very very very pro-Israel.

Netanyahu is a heroic figure for American Republicans after his outright defiance of Obama on the Iran deal. Here’s Shibley Telhami’s poll this week showing his popularity.

“Please name a national or world leader you admire most?” Benjamin Netanyahu was most frequently mentioned among Evangelical Christians (16%) ahead of Ronald Reagan (11%) and Barack Obama (10%). Among Republicans, Netanyahu ties Ronald Reagan (12%), but only one percent of Democrats select Netanyahu as most admired leader.

[F]avorable views of Netanyahu among Republicans stayed within the margin of error of last year’s results from (51% compared to 49% in 2014) while unfavorable views increased slightly from 9% to 13%

Here’s Trump’s endorsement for Netanyahu in 2013:

I’m a big fan of Israel. You truly have a great prime minister, in Benjamin Netanyahu, there’s nobody like him. He’s a winner, he’s highly respected, he’s highly thought of by all… Vote for Benjamin. Terrific guy. Terrific leader.

Jacob Kornbluh reports on Trump’s claim that Netanyahu reached out to him on that occasion.

Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2015/12/trump-netanyahu-call

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes