Looking at the situation U.S. President Donald Trump has fallen into in the U.S. lately, I believe it is time to open fresh debates on some issues.
First of all, if you ask what Israel's greatest influence on Trump has been, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started a war against Iran, and that war, in its natural course, drove up oil, food and fertilizer prices across the entire world – and that wound has still not been healed today.
Everyone knows that when voters in the U.S. make their decisions, fuel prices matter. The price of a gallon of gasoline, once $2.80, has now reached nearly $4.30 to $4.50, a level to which the American public is not accustomed.
On the other hand, when the U.S. declared war on Iraq, 63% of the public stood behind Bush in that Gulf War, whereas today Trump cannot seem to push public support for the Iran war beyond 30 to 35%.
Falling polls
Meanwhile, with support for the war on Iran at these levels – likely because of the Gaza and Iran wars – Trump's presidential approval rating keeps falling day by day, owing to the interest-rate increases, the food prices, and the costly fuel the American public has been forced to face.
According to the research conducted by almost all polling firms, Trump's support has most recently dropped to around 30%. A president has never fallen into such a troubled position in American history. It is likely that in the coming elections, Trump, with the shortfall in votes he will suffer in both chambers of Congress – both the Senate and the House of Representatives – may find himself reduced to a lame-duck position.
On the other hand, a narrative known as the "Gaza effect" keeps reviving and preserving its vitality among the American public. At the elite universities that graduate the students who will one day govern the U.S., whichever university dared to protest Israel over the genocide met with a drastic reaction. The police have beaten up academics and students. And highly esteemed academics were arrested. The federal funding for universities was withdrawn, while the presidents and senior administrators of institutions such as MIT and Harvard came under direct government pressure.
Secret everybody knew
In fact, the stance of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance's took against Israel makes one thing clear. When he told Israel's leaders that “you can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem,” and reminded them that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel,” he was confessing a secret everybody knew. For throughout American history, Israel and the U.S. have functioned almost as a single state, and time and again Congress and the bureaucracy have placed Israel's interests ahead of America's own.
Yet, if we look at where U.S.-Israeli relations stand today, across many regions of the U.S. – New York above all – anti-Israel candidates are emerging, and socialist candidates, who normally have little real influence in the country, are finding a response in society simply because they are against Israel and pro-Palestinian.
The U.S. appears to be facing a difficult test. While Israel is losing the American public on one side, on the other, Trump may lose the election because of Netanyahu's Israel.
Iran’s election card
In one sense, Iran played the election card to weaken the U.S. Although the U.S. has imposed a major embargo against Iran, Iran finds itself in a position of having to hold out until the election.
Trump believes and declares that he will launch a major attack on Iran after the election. But after the election, perhaps, the Senate and the House of Representatives can directly block such reckless military ventures.
Today there are elections in Israel and the U.S... At the U.N., the world's news agencies not only showed Netanyahu at the podium – they also broadcast the moments of the hall emptying while he was still speaking.
In a way, global Zionism, too, appears to have given up on Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has prepared the ground for the appearance of a world in which the Israeli public is violent and lawless. He destroyed the Western paradigm and has also fundamentally damaged relations between the U.S. and Israel.
To put the final point on this article: Trump may lose the election because of Netanyahu, because of Israel, and that is not something that can easily be compensated for. And it appears that Trump has so far been unable to pursue a sound policy on this matter – and Netanyahu refuses to accept the new system Trump has set up in Gaza and continues the massacre. Trump is facing an extremely heavy test. Let us see whether he can manage to carry this heavy burden through the election.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance, values or position of Daily Sabah. The newspaper provides space for diverse perspectives as part of its commitment to open and informed public discussion.