ELECTION/ISRAEL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Asked recently by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether the Trump administration had any reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to court the racist party Jewish Power amid his reelection bid—a divisive move that has earned the Israeli prime minister widespread condemnation in the United States—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: ‘We’re not about to get involved in, to interfere in the election of a democracy. Elections campaigns are tough. We’ll allow the Israeli people to sort this out.’ Pompeo’s response was as balanced and reasonable as American as apple pie and baseball. And he might actually have believed it. But you shouldn’t. One of the more fantastical myths about the U.S.-Israeli relationship is that they don’t intervene in our politics and we don’t intervene in theirs. As we approach what could prove to be momentous Israeli elections on April 9—with the prime minister facing, for the first time in a decade, the credible prospect of defeat—it would be well to remember the not-so-golden rule of supposed U.S. nonintervention in Israeli elections. Does the Trump administration want Netanyahu reelected? And will the president do everything he can to make it so?”
–Aaron David Miller, “Can Trump Save Netanyahu?,” Politico, March 1, 2019