TEL AVIV, Israel – Israeli politics has had an extraordinary guest star three times in a row: Donald Trump.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made his close relationship with Trump – who was very popular in Israel – a center of his campaigns. His Likud party hung a 15-storey poster on the busiest highway in Tel Aviv showing the two leaders grinning and shaking hands.
Trump, who apparently likes his political influence in the country, is widely seen as the ballot box in Netanyahu’s favor. Shortly before the March 2019 election, Trump invited Netanyahu to the White House and guaranteed him days of media coverage.
As tired Israeli voters go to the polls Tuesday for the fourth time in two years, Netanyahu can no longer rely on a helping hand from the White House.
President Joe Biden remains out of the Israeli election after keeping Netanyahu waiting for weeks to even receive a call. The silence lasted so long that White House press secretary Jen Psaki made it clear that it was not an “intentional difference” from Netanyahu.
Polls show that Netanyahu’s party will almost certainly win the most votes and seats in Tuesday’s election. However, it is not clear whether he will be able to form a majority coalition in parliament with his right-wing allies. He is also expected to win fewer seats than he did in last year’s vote.
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Netanyahu’s supporters say Trump’s absence does not hurt their chances. They point to Netanyahu’s success that has led to what is being portrayed as Israel’s world-wide vaccination of vaccines and his role in normalizing relations with several Arab states as sufficient reason for him to win re-election.
“Whether US presidents will have support or not, I do not think that is the biggest factor in the decision of the Israeli public,” said Nir Barkat, a Member of Parliament for Netanyahu’s party. “They will choose the best Israeli prime minister, regardless of who the president of the United States is.”
The change in US administrations offers a new attack on Netanyahu’s political opponents. Netanyahu’s close ties with Trump have been a political calling in the recent election; his rocky relationship with Democrats is a millstone that his opponents try to hang around his neck in this one.
“We have many unhappy Democrats with long memories,” said Yair Lapid, Israel’s central opposition leader, adding that Netanyahu ‘did not even connect Israel with the Republicans, but with a certain stream within the Republican Party.’
While Trump managed to maintain an almost iron grip on the Republican Party, a faction of Netanyahu’s Likud broke away and challenged him to the ballot box this year.
The New Hope Party’s charges against Netanyahu are consistent with the allegations that Trump never made against Trump – that he made his party a personality cult and fell into corruption.
Netanyahu was indicted last year on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. He is accused of accepting lavish gifts from wealthy friends and offering to provide favors to powerful media moguls in exchange for favorable coverage of him and his family. He denies the allegations, and the trial continues.
Sharren Haskel was a Member of Parliament for Likud, but joined the breakaway New Hope party last year. New Hope shares many of Likud’s right-wing positions, but says it offers ‘statesmanship’ instead of Netanyahu’s populism.
“The best days of Netanyahu are behind him, and the best days of Israel are ahead of him,” Haskel said. “Over the past year, we have seen red lines crossed. We are in a health crisis and an economic crisis, and the decision – making is not professional, but on a political basis. The red lines are to me and to more members in the Likud that a change in leadership is needed. ‘
Israel’s complex parliamentary system means that Netanyahu will probably only be replaced as prime minister if an unmanageable coalition of parties from the left, center and right can agree to bury their differences and unite against him to form a coalition government.
Regardless of the composition of the next government of Israel, Biden’s government has indicated that it has limited ambitions to resume Israeli and Palestinian peace talks.
“Realistically, it is difficult to see short-term prospects to continue,” Antony Blinken said during his confirmation hearing in the Senate to be secretary of state.
There is also a broad consensus among Israeli political parties in opposition to one of Biden’s key policy priorities in the Middle East: return to the nuclear deal in Iran, which the Obama administration negotiated and abandoned the Trump administration.
Israeli leaders across the political spectrum believe the agreement is not difficult for Iran. Their biggest disagreement is about how the matter can best be made at the White House to stay out of the agreement or at least strengthen it.
On election day, Netanyahu can no longer focus his ties with the US president. But he argues that he is the only candidate with the experience of driving Israel through the dangerous air in the Middle East.
“I know how to fly this plane,” he said. “The other guys, they do not have a flying license.”