J.J. Goldberg writes: The prime minister regards handling Israel’s international relations as one of his strong suits. And indeed, after meeting Donald Trump Sunday morning and Hillary Clinton that afternoon, he was able to assure Israeli citizens, as he told Army Radio, that “no matter the election results, we will have a friend in the White House.”
The last time he tried this was before America’s 2012 election. That was when he publicly embraced Republican candidate Mitt Romney and infuriated the sitting president, Barack Obama, a Democrat. Romney proceeded to lose the election, of course, and the prime minister was left with a sworn enemy in the White House.
That’s why Netanyahu insisted this time, after agreeing to a get-acquainted meeting with Trump, that Clinton be added to his schedule. Not that he needed to get acquainted with Clinton. They’ve known each other since his first term as prime minister, when she was first lady. More recently, she spent countless hours as secretary of state jawboning him, trying to advance a vision of peace that he didn’t share. They know each other all too well.
No, the main purpose of Netanyahu’s Sunday meet-the-candidates program was to give Trump an opportunity to look presidential. In a week when 100-plus world leaders were gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, dozens wanted to touch base with the former secretary of state. Only two took the time to meet with Trump: Netanyahu and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah a-Sisi.
Nearly as important to Trump, meeting with the Israeli leader should help score points with pro-Israel conservatives in the Jewish and Evangelical communities. Trump’s poll numbers are strong in both of those voting blocs, but the support is uneasy. Both groups are giving him strong backing primarily because he’s not a Democrat and won’t appoint liberals to the Supreme Court. But he’s not exactly a Republican either, at least in the normal sense of the word. Among his widest deviations from GOP doctrine are on foreign policy, abortion and gay rights. Those happen to be the top priorities of Jewish and Evangelical conservatives. Accordingly, a photo op with Prime Minister Netanyahu is worth its weight in super PAC donations.
The actual content of the two meetings was decidedly secondary.
