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World Jewish Congress chief Lauder turns on Netanyahu ahead of Israeli election
Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and once one of Benjamin Netanyahu's closest confidants, accused the Israeli prime minister in a Haaretz interview of putting his own political interests ahead of Israel's and warned that Israel is losing support in the United States.
Ronald Lauder, the American billionaire who has led the World Jewish Congress since 2007, sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Haaretz published Oct. 22, days before Israel's Oct. 27 general election. The newspaper ran the interview under the headline "What He Did Was Outrageous."
Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune who once helped Netanyahu rise to power, said the prime minister has put his own political future ahead of the country's interests. Haaretz reported that over the past year Lauder has given up his remaining properties in Israel.
Losing support in Washington
Lauder warned that Israel is losing bipartisan backing in the United States, telling Israelis that they had lost the Democratic Party and were now losing the Republican Party, according to Anadolu Agency's account of the interview. He also said the far-right parties of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich should have no place in the next government, arguing that extremists should never be part of a government.
A missed chance with Syria
Lauder, who carried messages between Netanyahu and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in the late 1990s, said Assad had been ready to sign a deal that included an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, but that Netanyahu chose politics over peace. He also said his relationship with the Netanyahus broke down after he refused requests for expensive gifts from the prime minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu.
Lauder has expressed a favorable view of opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief of staff, without throwing his full support behind other opposition leaders.
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