With days to go before a crucial general election in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a last-minute endorsement for re-election on Sunday from his longtime friend, U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday. “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.”
It’s a ringing, albeit late, recommendation for someone Trump hasn’t seen eye-to-eye with in recent months over how Netanyahu’s government has navigated the Middle East conflict. Trump explained his delayed endorsement to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, saying that he’d always meant to endorse Netanyahu because they “have a good relationship, and because we’ll continue to do good things together.”
Trump said in his post that, if Israel were to have “the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi,” the U.S. would be left alone to face the Iran threat. The U.S. and Israel jointly struck Iran in late February, kickstarting a conflict that has not only upended global markets but also thrust Middle Eastern regional security into turmoil.
“Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself,” Trump added, in apparent reference to Netanyahu’s domestic challenges, including a corruption trial, some of which the U.S. President has previously tried to influence. “Despite all of that, he has endured and, in fact, he has thrived!”
Trump’s endorsement comes just before Israelis head to the polling booths on Oct. 27, some three years after the country’s war with terror group Hamas ignited. Since then, Netanyahu has been criticized by opponents for failing to deliver on his promise of restoring regional security.
Public disillusionment with Netanyahu was among several factors that led to the formation of the Yashar! (“Straight!”) Party, whose founder, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, is challenging Netanyahu for the premiership. Eisenkot’s son and nephews were killed in the war in the Gaza Strip.
It’s unclear how big of an electoral boost Netanyahu will get from Trump’s endorsement. An opinion poll from nonprofit The Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem released this month shows that most Israelis still see Trump as a great friend of Israel. A separate opinion poll from JPPI, however, shows their trust in him has eroded. Eisenkot, reacting to Trump’s endorsement, said at an event in Tel Aviv that while he appreciates Trump, only Israelis will decide on their next Prime Minister. Some surveys show Yashar! is in a tight race with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.
Netanyahu nonetheless thanked his “dear friend Donald” in a video posted on social media, saying he was “honored” and “humbled” by Trump’s backing, adding that the U.S. was “fortunate” to have Trump as its leader in the fight to denuclearize Iran.
Trump and Netanyahu’s fraught friendship
Even before Trump became U.S. President, he had publicly endorsed Netanyahu, though Trump, still only a TV personality in 2013, said that the Israeli politician asked for it. Since Trump was first elected, the two have been political allies and friends. Their relationship, however, has seen a number of ups and downs since Trump returned to the White House last year.
Netanyahu was the first foreign leader invited to the White House during Trump’s second-term Administration, and he has met with Trump repeatedly since. Netanyahu pushed Trump to target three key Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year. Last November, Trump sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, asking him to pardon Netanyahu on his drawn out corruption trial, which the U.S. President deemed to be “political, unjustified prosecution.”
On Feb. 11, when Trump and Netanyahu met in a closed-door meeting at the White House, Israel and the U.S. failed to reach an agreement on how to proceed with Iran. Netanyahu has long sought to decapitate the Iranian leadership, but Trump at the time insisted on negotiations. Netanyahu, nonetheless, reportedly pressed Trump to launch the Iran operation later that month.
Since their last meeting, their relationship has markedly shifted. Trump has since tried to find an off-ramp to the war in Iran, but Israel’s actions made such peace deal talks thorny.
In March, after Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, Trump said he told Netanyahu to stop such attacks. Then, on April 17, Trump declared on Truth Social that Israel was “PROHIBITED” from further bombing Lebanon, where it was at war with the militant group Hezbollah. Netanyahu, however, insisted that Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon and that security threats persisted—complicating Washington’s efforts toward peace as Tehran indicated that any deal would need to include a halt of the attacks in Lebanon.
When Netanyahu in June ordered strikes on a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut to retaliate against the group’s alleged attacks on Israel, Trump phoned and excoriated the Israeli Prime Minister, reportedly calling him “f-cking crazy.” Asked by CNBC about the call, Netanyahu said: “We have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends.”
During Netanyahu’s seventh U.S. visit in July, Trump went public with his frustration. During a telephone interview on Fox News, Trump criticized Netanyahu over reports that the Israeli leader planned to share intelligence showing Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The U.S. President said: “I don’t need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.”
Netanyahu is part of Trump’s U.N. alternative called the Board of Peace, though Israel broke again with the U.S. President by rejecting having Turkish and Qatari representatives on the board’s subpanel, the Gaza Executive Board, which is tasked with overseeing post-war reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.
Then Netanyahu rejected the Board of Peace’s 15-point plan to advance a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and insisted that Israel would not withdraw before Hamas fully disarmed.
In Trump’s extensive interview with TIME in late September, Trump did not answer directly when asked repeatedly if the Israeli population should give Netanyahu another term. “I can only say that I’m not involved in politics anymore,” the U.S. President said.
But despite the lack of clear endorsement then, Trump seemed confident that “Bibi” could still win. “People have written off Bibi many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times,” Trump told TIME. “I wouldn’t underestimate Bibi.”