Extracts from Guardian (Aus Edition):
Israel's Netanyahu to play Trump card in tight election
PM gets Washington photo ops after Trump recognises Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights
[this article is more than one year old]
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Benjamin Netanyahu (R) speaks with Donald Trump during the US president’s visit to Tel Aviv in 2017 Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images |
Israel’s April election has at times felt like it might be Benjamin Netanyahu’s last. But even as he tries to fend off a string of corruption accusations, the prime minister cannot be counted out. He has survived 13 years in office, and he now has a Trump card up his sleeve.
Netanyahu will use that card on Monday when he arrives in Washington to bask at the White House in the warmth of his relationship with Donald Trump, whose popularity has soared in Israel as it has sagged almost everywhere else in the world.
Even before the Israeli prime minister’s arrival, Trump bestowed an electoral gift, declaring US readiness to endorse Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, a plateau Israel captured from Syria and occupied more than half a century ago. Accepting the annexation of conquered land is unprecedented in modern US history and runs counter to the founding principles of the United Nations. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was on hand in Jerusalem to celebrate with Netanyahu when Trump tweeted out his decision on Thursday.
Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, helped amplify Netanyahu’s tendency to frame the current political moment as an echo of biblical episodes when the very survival of the Jews was at stake. Asked by an evangelical broadcasting network whether Trump was a latter-day Queen Esther, an ancient heroine celebrated as the saviour of the Jews in this week’s Purim holiday, Pompeo replied: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.”
Netanyahu will use that card on Monday when he arrives in Washington to bask at the White House in the warmth of his relationship with Donald Trump, whose popularity has soared in Israel as it has sagged almost everywhere else in the world.
Even before the Israeli prime minister’s arrival, Trump bestowed an electoral gift, declaring US readiness to endorse Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, a plateau Israel captured from Syria and occupied more than half a century ago. Accepting the annexation of conquered land is unprecedented in modern US history and runs counter to the founding principles of the United Nations. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was on hand in Jerusalem to celebrate with Netanyahu when Trump tweeted out his decision on Thursday.
Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, helped amplify Netanyahu’s tendency to frame the current political moment as an echo of biblical episodes when the very survival of the Jews was at stake. Asked by an evangelical broadcasting network whether Trump was a latter-day Queen Esther, an ancient heroine celebrated as the saviour of the Jews in this week’s Purim holiday, Pompeo replied: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.”
The shared theological – frequently apocalyptic – language, has helped bond an alliance with American evangelicals which is key to Netanyahu’s clout in US politics. Pompeo underlined the symbolism of that coalition by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem with Netanyahu, becoming the first senior US official to visit the contested Old City accompanied by an Israeli counterpart.
Coming after the decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the US embassy there, Thursday’s Golan declaration served to boost the central message of Netanyahu’s campaign: that only “King Bibi” could get an American leader to implement hawkish policies on Syria, Iran and the Palestinians that previous US presidents dismissed as catastrophic for Middle East peace.
The Arabs banning Jews from visiting the Western Wall 1948 -1967 was one of the very emotive reasons for the taking of Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteThe equivalent situation would have been if the Jews had taken control of the Kaabah and banned Muslims from anywhere in the world from worshipping at the Kaabah.
sound like us president oso slave to taiwanese n hker politics.
ReplyDeletein your dreams, wakakaka
DeleteWakakakaka…
DeleteThe wettest & most erotically arose type!
both well protected by a foc bodyguard, whats diff?
DeleteFOC bodyguard?
DeleteThe 台毒 paid for the protection with never-ending genuflecting minion servitude to the bodyguard.
The HK 废青 paid for the protection by creating riots in the land of their birth to that bodyguard.
DemoNcratic FOC!
israel paid with their young soldier life.
DeleteOnly NOW u realized?
Delete!!!!
Indeed time-dilated news spreading ultra slow in that fart filled well of yrs.