Early in 2019, as Israel was heading into a divisive parliamentary election, a massive campaign poster along a Tel Aviv freeway showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands with President Donald Trump. Now, five such elections and one near-civil war later, that same highway has been repeatedly blocked by protesters against Netanyahu’s plan to place the country’s Supreme Court under his political control.
Nothing could be more grimly appropriate to the crisis of democracy in Israel than the notion of Trump’s image looming over it. For however much the turmoil in Israel arises from some distinctively Israeli causes, such as the nation’s continuing lack of a constitution, Netanyahu and his far-right coalition have made the Trump playbook their political Torah.
Netanyahu portrayed his bromance with Trump as the essential factor in the president’s many unreciprocated concessions to Israel — moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem; recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear arms deal; ignoring and undermining the Palestinian Authority.
