Foreign Affairs
State of the Union: Nine days before Israel heads to the polls, Trump heaped praise on the country’s prime minister.
(Maâayan Toaf (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In a statement posted to Truth Social on Sunday, President Trump announced his “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election bid. “Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister,” Trump wrote, “and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Trump went on to describe Netanyahu as “Strong, Brave, and Brilliant,” adding that he was “the kind of Partner that the United States of America is demanding of Israel, a Country for which it has done so much.”
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The president also suggested that if Netanyahu did not win, the United States may rethink its military operations against Iran. “If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi,” he wrote, “America will have to do this work [i.e., fighting the Iran war] ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.”
Israel will hold its parliamentary elections on October 27. Netanyahu, who is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, is seeking to win enough seats for his Likud party and its parliamentary allies to continue his premiership. His closest rival is former IDF general Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar party holds a narrow lead in most polls.
Although U.S. presidents have historically avoided endorsing candidates in foreign elections, Trump has broken with precedent to back political allies in Poland, Argentina, Hungary, Japan, Honduras, Chile, Colombia, and now Israel.