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Trump gives Netanyahu ‘complete and total endorsement’ nine days before Israeli vote
President Donald Trump endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the Oct. 27 election, days after saying he trusts no one in politics, and warned that America would have to deal with Iran alone if Israelis picked anyone else.
President Donald Trump on Sunday threw his support behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nine days before Israel’s Oct. 27 parliamentary election, ending weeks of public hedging. In a lengthy message on Truth Social addressed “To the Great People of Israel,” Trump wrote:
“Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its 51 year old chant, ‘Death to Israel, Death to America! We will destroy the Little Satan and the Big Satan.’ What Country can survive when things such as this are allowed to be said, because eventually, they always end up being true? It would have been only a question of time until Iran would have put that ominous phrase into effect, but they have been systematically destroyed, both Militarily and Financially, and unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job. If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.
Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself. Despite all of that, he has endured and, in fact, he has thrived! I have watched Bibi under the most trying of times. Normal men or women in such situations would have wilted under the pressure — But Bibi did not wilt, he actually got stronger, and maintains that same Strength today. This is the kind of Partner that the United States of America is demanding of Israel, a Country for which it has done so much. Please let this Letter serve to represent my Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu in his upcoming Race for Re-Election as Prime Minister of Israel. BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Allies cheer, rivals say Israelis will decide
Netanyahu responded within minutes in Hebrew: “Thank you, President Trump, for the tremendous support and the joint work. Together we will complete the mission!” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called Trump “one of the State of Israel’s greatest friends in the world” and said that while Israelis will decide the outcome, “it would be wise to listen to the president of the world’s greatest superpower, simply because he is right.” Defense Minister Israel Katz welcomed what he called Trump’s “unequivocal support” for Netanyahu.
Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, seen as the main challenger for the premiership, told Channel 12: “I have very great respect for President Trump, but the only ones who will decide are the citizens of Israel.” Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, whose party is polling third, said, “I know I can get along very well with President Trump,” adding that “every leader works with the leader who is elected.”
A turnaround after weeks of hedging
The endorsement reverses Trump’s earlier reluctance. He sidestepped the question in an interview with Time magazine earlier this month, and when Newsmax asked him on Thursday whether he trusts Netanyahu, he replied, “I don’t trust anybody in the world of politics.” In June, he acknowledged cursing at Netanyahu in a phone call over Israel’s strikes on Lebanon. Trump has also broken with longtime U.S. convention by endorsing candidates in foreign elections, including in Hungary, Colombia, Argentina, Japan and Honduras.
The endorsement comes as the war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran on Feb. 28 weighs on Trump at home, where a Pew Research Center poll this month found that about two-thirds of American voters disapprove of his handling of it ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. In Israel, an average of four recent polls by Maariv, Channel 12, Channel 13 and Kan gives Eisenkot’s Yashar 21.5 seats to 19 for Netanyahu’s Likud, with the two blocs virtually tied at about 51 seats each, short of the 61 needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
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