In what should come as no big surprise at all, President Trump has issued a whole-hearted endorsement for Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday as next Israeli prime minister.
Axios points out, "This is the first time in the history of the U.S.–Israel relations that a U.S. president explicitly and publicly endorsed a candidate in the Israeli elections."
There's a mere nine days to go before the country's Oct.27 elections, and domestically Netanyahu has long been accused of prolonging and escalating conflicts in order to sell himself as the necessary 'wartime president'.
Axios further observes that Trump's endorsement was 'needed' as most polls show Netanyahu's coalition "falling short of the 61 seats needed to form a government."
Trump himself on Truth Social touted Bibi as "a Great Warrior Prime Minister" and a "great partner" in the war against Iran.
"If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work [in Iran] ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so," Trump wrote.
The post is full of lavish praise about how Netanyahu 'thrives' under pressure and that most "normal men and women" would in the same situations "would have wilted under pressure."
Political opponents are lambasting inappropriate 'foreign intervention' while Netanyahu is really soaking in and making the most of Trump's full explicit backing:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Israel could face a “hostile” US president in two years, emphasizing the need to capitalize on the time remaining in US President Donald Trump’s term.
“There is a window of another two years with President Trump, and one of the questions in these elections is who will work with Trump? Who will complete the remaining work?” Netanyahu said.
The full post:
Early on, after the US launched Operation Epic Fury, a slew of top admin officials including Marco Rubio admitted that the war is happening to defend Israel from the Iranian threat, and focused on preventing Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.
The White House has since tried to downplay it, but this remains the publicly articulated rationale among admin legal and official memos defending the 'legal justification' of the war. A State Department publication issued on April 21 of this year stated firmly: "As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the U.N. Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense."
At this point Trump might need Netanyahu for whatever next rounds of bombing break out, but more importantly Bibi needs Trump. Iranian leaders have warned that if the Islamic Republic comes under direct bombing raids again, Israel would in turn likely face Iran's ballistic missiles once again.