Uncategorized
Netanyahu once decried ‘daylight’ with Washington. Now he’s tolerating Trump’s glare.
WASHINGTON – When Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump in February, the Israeli prime minister’s first meeting with the president in his second term, he made clear that he hoped the days of “daylight” between the two countries were gone.
”When Israel and the United States don’t work together, that creates problems,” Netanyahu said then. ”When the other side sees daylight between us — and occasionally, in the last few years, to put it mildly, they saw daylight – then it’s more difficult.”
The dig was at President Joe Biden and the differences the Democrat and Netanyahu had over Israel’s conduct of its war with Hamas in Gaza.
Trump and his deputies have since then expressed their frustrations with Israel in language far more blunt and excoriating than Biden ever deployed. They have also put their finger on the scale in shaping Israeli leaders’ actions and words more than Biden ever tried to.
“Frankly, it’s baffling to me that somehow he continues to get away with it,” said Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
Soifer noted that there was barely any pushback when Trump took actions that undermined Israel, including brokering a separate deal with the Houthi militia in Yemen that allowed it to continue attacking Israeli ships while allowing American ships to pass, and visiting Qatar, a backer of Hamas, but not Israel during a Middle East tour earlier this year.
She said what was striking about Trump’s actions were not necessarily the results, but the underlying assumption that he must be obeyed.
“He has actually pushed Netanyahu quite a bit and used a pretty sharp language in the process, which is not entirely a bad thing, but some of the extent to which he has either threatened or has threatened, I would say, is language that would be wholly unacceptable if it were a Democrat in any circumstance,” she said.
She offered an example: “He was emphatic in saying that Israel should not be annexing the West Bank. Now, it’s not that I disagree with that position, but he said Israel would lose ‘all support from the United States’ if it happened.”
Indeed, Netanyahu and his supporters have waged rebellions, and won concessions, over far less significant incursions against his authority. Yet the prime minister, who just over a year ago was deploying social media videos and a speech to Congress to criticize Biden, has been silent in the face of the blunt and at times vulgar broadsides he has endured from Trump and top deputies — and effusive in his continued praise of Trump.
Pro-Israel conservatives who were critical of how the Biden administration treated Israel say the difference is in how Trump’s tough love does not stint on the “love” component: Netanyahu is able to take the criticism because he knows it comes wrapped around goodies.
The United States in June joined Israel in its short war against Iran, the first such offensive U.S. role in an Israeli military action in the history of relations between the countries. Biden had provided Israel with logistical support in scuffles with Iran triggered by Israel’s war with Hamas, a terrorist organization that has for decades been allied with Iran, but did not directly involve the U.S. military.
“The amount of credit that this administration now has with the Israeli government is enormous,” said Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It’s amazing what happens when you bomb the Iranian nuclear program, how much goodwill that buys you.”
Michael Makovsky, president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a group that advocates for a robust U.S.-Israel military alliance, said Republicans are more likely to extract concessions from Israel because they have become the repository of support for Israel in the United States as Democrats have become increasingly disillusioned with the country.
“It makes it harder for Netanyahu to [buck] any pro-Israel Republican president, but especially Trump, who obviously would certainly hold it against him,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking to college students this week, further underscored the conundrum facing Netanyahu and pro-Israel voices when he emphasized that he did not see U.S. support for Israel as sacrosanct — and noted that Trump makes up his own mind when it comes to Israel.
“When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they’re not manipulating or controlling this president of the United States,” he said.
Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration, said Netanyahu was in a bind because Republicans in Congress who in any other circumstance would confront a president who criticized Israel were afraid of Trump.
“They’re willing to fall in line if that’s what he wants,” Rubin said. “They may try to do their work [lobbying for Israel] behind the scenes.”
Democrats, having fallen out with Netanyahu because of tensions during the Obama and Biden presidencies, are not going to step into that breach, said Rubin, who was the Jewish outreach official during the 2020 presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a strident Israel critic.
“Do Democrats want to take issue with that, that Trump is acting like he’s the prime minister of Israel, or do they kind of agree with some of that he’s doing?” he said.
It was during the June Iran war that Trump told the press outside the White House that Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f— they’re doing.” Last week alone, Vice President JD Vance called the Knesset “stupid” for voting to annex the West Bank, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top Middle East envoy, said the administration felt “betrayed” by Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in Qatar.
The remark evinced barely a whimper from Israel, a stark contrast with the weeks of agonizing that eventuated when an anonymous Obama White House official in 2014 called Netanyahu “chickens–t” for dithering on peace and on how best to confront Iran. The ensuing diplomatic turmoil culminated in an apology to Netanyahu from the White House and from then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Trump famously not only does not do apologies, he has a track record of sacking anyone who works for him who does. He also doesn’t have to: Netanyahu is rolling with the punches, as long as they’re coming from Trump and co. Greeting Vance last week, Netanyahu said that the Israel-U.S. alliance has been “second to none” in Trump’s second term.
In fact, when apologies are forthcoming in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, they are from the Israeli side. In a White House meeting last month, Trump made a show of getting Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar’s prime minister for the strike.
Netanyahu’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, groveled in a televised apology for having advised Saudi Arabia to “keep riding camels in the desert” if the kingdom conditions a peace deal on a path to Palestinian statehood. The remarks infuriated the Trump administration, which is trying to bring the Saudis into the Abraham Accords, the normalization deals Trump brokered in 2020 at the end of his first term.
Netanyahu scrambled to tamp down the significance of the Knesset vote during Vance’s visit that called for the annexation of the West Bank, after Vance called the vote “a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it.”
The vote, Netanyahu said, was “a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel.”
It was a striking contrast with the last time the Israeli right wing thumbed its nose at a visiting prime minister, when Biden visited Israel in 2010 to emphasize the U.S.-Israel friendship – and Israel announced plans to build in a disputed portion of Jerusalem.
Biden and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rebuked Netanyahu – but in private, not on the Ben Gurion Airport tarmac, as Vance did. And Netanyahu deployed his diplomats and pro-Israel advocates in the United States to complain that the American reaction was over the top.
Trump gets a pass because he is family, especially now that he brokered the release of the last 20 living hostages held by Hamas, said Schanzer.
“When you have a close relationship with a friend and you’re able to take you know, as the Brits say, take the piss, you can take shots at somebody who you love and know and trust,” he said. Trump has the bandwidth with Israelis because he was able to bring home the hostages, Schanzer said.
“The Israeli right and the Israeli left cannot agree on the color of hummus right now, but they all agree that Donald Trump has done enormous good for the country,” he said. “The hostage families adore Trump and Witkoff and Kushner.”
Biden believed he had a close relationship with Israel and was in fact reluctant to press Israel hard as it retaliated against Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of close to 1,200 people in Israel, the event that triggered the war. The president came under fire from Democrats for not doing enough to leverage U.S. aid to contain Israel.
Makovsky of JINSA said Trump consistently couples the constraints he imposes on Israel with warnings that he is ready to unleash Israeli power if its enemies do not stand back.
“One of the most important things he said here is that if Hamas doesn’t agree to this agreement or abide by it, he will back Israel to do whatever they need to do,” Makovsky said, referring to the ceasefire Trump brokered in the Gaza war.
To the degree that Netanyahu has expressed unhappiness with tensions between Israel and the faction in the Trump administration led by Vance that seeks to roll back U.S. military alliances, including with Israel, it has been through leaks.
The Israeli satirical program “Eretz Nehederet” has noticed the difference in Netanyahu’s approaches to Biden and Trump and last week depicted Netanyahu as a supplicant to Trump, who was portrayed as a Roman emperor. “Donald Trump is emperor!” Netanyahu dances and sings in the sketch. “If you want an apology to [Qatar] you got it!”
Advocacy for “no daylight” between Israel and the United States stretches back decades and became an issue in Obama’s first year in office, when Jewish leaders pleaded with the new president to sustain the practice of keeping criticisms private.
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s Jewish community campaign on Trump’s behalf last year highlighted the phrase. The RJC did not return a request for comment for this story.
Some pro-Israel conservatives are wary of what they see as Republican distancing from Israel, although they are careful not to blame Trump. Mark Levin, the Jewish Fox News pundit, last month blasted White House insiders who criticized Netanyahu for tangling with movement conservatives like Tucker Carlson who are critical of Israel.
“They’re undermining the president,” Levin said of the officials leaking their criticisms of Netanyahu to the press. “They’re pushing a propaganda campaign. Not a word from the insiders about a single terrorist group or terrorist country. Just Israel and Netanyahu. This is a scandal.”
Yet daylight keeps creeping into the relationship – and some of its exponents are Jewish conservatives who have until now been among Israel’s most strident defenders.
Figures like Yoram Hazony, the Israeli-American philosopher who is close to Vance, do not criticize Netanyahu, but they are unabashed in criticizing Israeli lawmakers for endangering emerging ties between Israel and Arab nations.
“President Trump, VP Vance, and Netanyahu himself, are completely justified in thinking this behavior in the Israeli parliament is irresponsible, insulting, and tiresome — and in saying so in strong terms so the Saudis don’t just announce that the deal is off and walk away,” Hazony said last week.
Joel Pollak, a senior editor at the Trump-supporting Breitbart news, said in an op-ed that Trump’s role was to protect Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister struggled to contain the far right.
“If Israel cannot stop its fanatics — some of whom regard the Israeli state as illegitimate — it will not survive,” Pollak wrote. “Yet Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have struggled to rein in that fringe — especially because the existential threat posed by terrorism made internal law enforcement politically fraught.”
Trump, Pollak said, is “making clear that there will be a high diplomatic cost for yielding to the fringe.”
—
The post Netanyahu once decried ‘daylight’ with Washington. Now he’s tolerating Trump’s glare. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Iran Opposes Grossi’s UN Secretary-General Candidacy, Accuses Him of Failing to Uphold International Law
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi holds a press conference on the opening day of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
Iran has publicly opposed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi’s potential appointment as UN Secretary-General next year, accusing him of failing to uphold international law by not condemning US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June.
During a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, sharply criticized Grossi, calling him unfit” to serve as UN Secretary-General next year, Iranian media reported.
“A candidate who has deliberately failed to uphold the UN Charter — or to condemn unlawful military attacks against safeguarded, peaceful nuclear facilities … undermines confidence in his ability to serve as a faithful guardian of the charter and to discharge his duties independently, impartially, and without political bias or fear of powerful states,” the Iranian diplomat said.
With UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ term ending in December next year, member states have already begun nominating candidates to take over the role ahead of the expected 2026 election.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel’s relationship with Guterres has spiraled downward, reaching a low point last year when then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz labeled the UN “antisemitic and anti-Israeli” and declared Guterres persona non grata after the top UN official failed to condemn Tehran for its ballistic missile attack against the Jewish state.
Last week, Argentina officially nominated Grossi to succeed Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General.
To be elected, a nominee must first secure the support of at least nine members of the UN Security Council and avoid a veto from any of its five permanent members — the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France.
Afterward, the UN General Assembly votes, with a simple majority needed to confirm the organization’s next leader.
As head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog since 2019, Grossi has consistently urged Iran to provide transparency on its nuclear program and cooperate with the agency, efforts the Islamist regime has repeatedly rejected and obstructed.
Despite Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapons development, Western powers have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
With prospects for renewed negotiations or nuclear cooperation dwindling, Iran has been intensifying efforts to rebuild its air and defense capabilities decimated during the 12-day war with Israel.
On Monday, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), declared that the IAEA has no authority to inspect sites targeted during the June war, following Grossi’s renewed calls for Tehran to allow inspections of its nuclear sites and expand cooperation with the agency.
Iran has also announced plans to expand its nuclear cooperation with Russia and advance the construction of new nuclear power plants, as both countries continue to deepen their bilateral relations.
According to AEOI spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi, one nuclear power plant is currently operational, while other two are under construction, with new contracts signed during a recent high-level meeting in Moscow.
Kamalvandi also said Iran plans to build four nuclear power plants in the country’s southern region as part of its long-term partnership with Russia.
During a joint press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran’s commitment to defending the country’s “legal nuclear rights” under the now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal, noting that Tehran’s nuclear policies have remained within the international legal framework.
Iran’s growing ties with Russia, particularly in nuclear cooperation, have deepened in recent years as both countries face mounting Western sanctions and seek to expand their influence in opposition to Western powers.
Russia has not only helped Iran build its nuclear program but also consistently defended the country’s “nuclear rights” on the global stage, while opposing the imposition of renewed economic sanctions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran as a “disgrace to diplomacy.”
In an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN), Lavrov accused European powers of attempting to blame Tehran for the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal, despite what he described as Iran’s compliance with the agreement.
Prior to the 12-day war, the IAEA flagged a series of Iranian violations of the deal.
Uncategorized
Eurovision Host Says It Will Not Drown Out Any Boos During Israel’s Performance
ORF executive producer Michael Kroen attends a press conference about the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
The host broadcaster of the next Eurovision Song Contest, Austria’s ORF, will not ban the Palestinian flag from the audience or drown out booing during Israel’s performance as has happened at previous shows, organizers said on Tuesday.
The 70th edition of the contest in May will have just 35 entries, the smallest number of participants since 2003, after five national broadcasters including those of Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands said they would boycott the show in protest at Israel’s participation.
What is usually a celebration of national diversity, pop music, and high camp has become embroiled in diplomatic strife, with those boycotting saying it would be unconscionable to take part given the number of civilians killed in Gaza during Israel’s military campaign following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
“We will allow all official flags that exist in the world, if they comply with the law and are in a certain form – size, security risks, etc.,” the show’s executive producer, Michael Kroen, told a news conference organized by ORF.
“We will not sugarcoat anything or avoid showing what is happening, because our task is to show things as they are,” Kroen said.
AUSTRIA SUPPORTED ISRAEL PARTICIPATING
The broadcaster will not drown out the sound of any booing from the crowd, as happened this year during Israel’s performance, ORF’s director of programming Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz said.
“We won’t play artificial applause over it at any point,” she said.
Israel’s 2025 entrant, Yuval Raphael, was at the Nova music festival that was a target of the Hamas-led attack. The CEO of Israeli broadcaster KAN had likened the efforts to exclude Israel in 2026 to a form of “cultural boycott.”
ORF and the Austrian government were among the biggest supporters of Israel participating over the objections of countries including Iceland and Slovenia, which will also boycott the next contest in protest. ORF Director General Roland Weissmann visited Israel in November to show his support.
This year’s show drew around 166 million viewers, according to the European Broadcasting Union, more than the roughly 128 million who Nielsen estimates watched the Super Bowl.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel.
Uncategorized
Antisemitism Allowed to Fester in Australia, Says Daughter of Wounded Holocaust Survivor
Victoria Teplitsky, daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded at the Bondi shootings, stands at a floral memorial in honor of the victims of the mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday, at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
Government authorities have not done enough to stamp out hatred of Jews in Australia, which has allowed it to fester in the aftermath of Oct. 7, said the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded at the Bondi shootings on Sunday.
Victoria Teplitsky, 53, a retired childcare center owner, said that the father and son who allegedly went on a 10-minute shooting spree that killed 15 people had been “taught to hate,” which was a bigger factor in the attack than access to guns.
“It’s not the fact that those two people had a gun. It’s the fact that hatred has been allowed to fester against the Jewish minority in Australia,” she told Reuters in an interview.
“We are angry at our government because it comes from the top, and they should have stood up for our community with strength. And they should have squashed the hatred rather than kind of letting it slide,” she said.
“We’ve been ignored. We feel like, are we not Australian enough? Do we not matter to our government?”
The attackers fired upon hundreds of people at a Jewish festival during a roughly 10-minute killing spree, forcing people to flee and take shelter before both were shot by police.
RISING ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS
Antisemitic incidents have been rising in Australia since the war in Gaza erupted after Palestinian terrorist group Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis in an attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
A rise in such incidents in the past sixteen months prompted the head of the nation’s main intelligence agency to declare that antisemitism was his top priority in terms of threat.
“This was not a surprise to the Jewish community. We warned the government of this many, many times over,” Teplitsky said.
“We’ve had synagogues that have been graffitied, graffiti everywhere, and we’ve had synagogues that have been bombed,” she added, referring to a 2024 arson attack in Melbourne in which no one was killed.
Teplitsky’s father Semyon, 86, bled heavily after being shot in the leg, and now is facing several operations as doctors piece bone back together with cement, then remove the cement from the leg, which he still may lose, she said.
“He’s in good spirits, but he’s also very angry. Angry that this happened, that this was allowed to happen in Australia, the country that he took his children to, to be safe, to be away from antisemitism, to be away from Jew hatred.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “did nothing” to curb antisemitism.
Albanese repeated on Tuesday Australia‘s support for a two-state solution. Anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests have been common in Australia since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza.
At a press briefing on Monday, Albanese read through a list of actions his government had taken, including criminalizing hate speech and incitement to violence and a ban on the Nazi salute. He also pledged to extend funding for physical security for Jewish community groups.