When Donald Trump appeared at a Republican Jewish Coalition event in 2019, he referred to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘your prime minister’. Now that prime minister has incurred Trump’s wrath.
On Tuesday at a rally in South Palm Beach Trump declared that Netanyahu was ‘not prepared’ for the assault by Hamas on Israel. Netanyahu, he said, got cold feet about joining in the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was offed in Iraq in a drone strike on 3 January 2020. For good measure, Trump added that Hezbollah was ‘very smart’.
For Netanyahu, who tried to curry favour with Trump during his presidency, the barbed comments from Trump are another sign that his grasp on power has become more than a little tenuous. Trump, as he has repeatedly said, likes winners. He clearly sees Netanyahu as something else, namely, a loser.
Trump can be counted upon with metronomic regularity to lash out petulantly during a crisis
Trump’s nasty comments triggered a predictable backlash in America and Israel.
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