US President Donald Trump on Sunday offered his "complete and total" endorsement of ICC fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the country's 27 October elections.
"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!," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister who is wanted by the International Criminal Court over war crimes committed in Gaza, is in a tight race to win a new mandate and quickly acknowledged Trump's gesture.
"Thank you, President Trump, for your tremendous support and for our work together. Together we will complete the mission!" Netanyahu wrote on X.
In his post, Trump described Netanyahu as "a Great Warrior Prime Minister" and an ally in the war on Iran that began in late February with a massive bombing campaign but has dragged on as Tehran has retaliated by blocking global energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump asserted that without Netanyahu as Israel's leader, the United States would be alone in combating the threat from the Islamic regime, "with its 51-year-old chant, 'Death to Israel, Death to America! We will destroy the Little Satan and the Big Satan.'"
"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," the US president said.
"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," he added.