How Trump and Bibi's Special Bond Damaged the U.S.-Israel Alliance
The Trump administration’s relationship with Israel was a lie wrapped in a fantasy inside an illusion. For the Israeli right, U.S. evangelicals, and America’s most hardcore Israel-boosters, the past four years seemed to be a golden age. The U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem. Subway stops and mountain villages in Israel were named after Trump. The U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister were living a romance that rivaled even that of Trump and his little love dumpling in Pyongyang.
Now, as we approach 100 days since Trump has left office, the truth is being revealed. The lie at the heart of the relationship was that the U.S. evangelicals that were his base actually cared about Israel. The fantasy wrapped around that particular lie was the Rapture. The real reason they cared was they needed Israel to get to the religious happy ending foretold in the Christian bible and that, of course, does not turn out so well for the Jews. The lie Trump told his evangelical supporters at home and his Israeli ones abroad was that the policies he introduced would not largely be reversed once he left office.
This week, J-Street, the more progressive—which is to say humane and sensible—of the Washington organizations devoted to the U.S.-Israel relationship, held its annual meeting. Five thousand people were in virtual attendance. The turn-out and the quality of speakers—including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and legions of other top U.S. and Israeli political leaders—was a sign of the relative ascendancy of a group that not so long ago was seen as far less influential than the older, right-leaning America-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). No longer.
With a Democrat in the White House and Democrats holding majorities in the Senate and House—and AIPAC having over recent years served as a platform for increasingly partisan, pro-GOP messages from Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies—J-Street sent a clear message that it had arrived at a moment of influence unrivaled in its previous 14 years of existence.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-bibi-special-bond-damaged-085835666.html
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