Two leaders, Trump/ Netanyahu -- one hostile media
Two leaders, Trump/ Netanyahu -- one hostile media

Check the Hebrew press on any given morning and there you will find the “breaking news” that Prime Minister Netanyahu is moments away from being arrested.

Then they uncork the champagne. Or pray that it should be so. What’s the complaint? No matter. They’ll find something…anything.

Around here it is pretty much the same. No, it is exactly the same, so far as President Trump. Except that here we call it “impeachment.”

So it is – what happens in Israel does not stay in Israel. It comes to America, and I mention Israel first because they’ve been hankering for a hanging against Netanyahu every single day for 10 years and Trump for two years. Brothers we are -- our two countries sharing the same love of liberty and – remarkably – the same hostile press.

Count on their assessment of Trump’s State of the Union Address Tuesday night to accentuate the negative. His pride on the booming economy? So what? We have too many rich people. His plea for healing between the two parties – the overall focus of his remarks? Already The New York Times says he “failed to bring harmony.”

He spared not a word nor spent a moment on the Palestinian Arabs, whose “cause” was normally and automatically front and center – but no more under Trump.  
In fact, Trump had the room in thrall. His “choose greatness” speech was inspired. He singled out anti-Semitism as a particular menace, here at home, as in Pittsburgh, and back then and there as in the days of the Holocaust, spending more time on that topic than on any other – underlined on his bringing Iran to heel, a nation that “threatens genocide against the Jewish people.”

In a first for such events, he spared not a word nor spent a moment on the Palestinian Arabs, whose “cause” was normally and automatically front and center – but no more under Trump.  

Does that get him points? Doubtful.

Thus, our two leaders are in the same boat, marked for the same fate – with only one difference.

In Israel, they want Sara Netanyahu also arrested. Yes, this is true, and the media wines and dines on this as well. But the prime minister’s wife should feel flattered.

In the United States, our media ignore Melania completely.

Our First Lady gets the Silent Treatment for the chutzpah of being married to Trump. That’ll teach her!

So, what’s behind these twin smear campaigns? For Trump, it’s simply his behaving too much like Trump. He insists on being a patriot and that is all they need to know.

In Israel, according to the media and likeminded politicians, Netanyahu is considered a hardliner, a designation true Zionists find laughable. They’ve got their own complaints…like the building freezes and the dithering against Hamas, and more complaints as to his being soft on Arab terrorism; but there is no question that his presence on the world stage has been a boon for Israel. He is a salesman for Israel par excellence.

On that, the Right can’t fault him…and frankly, I don’t remember if Israel EVER really had a truly Right Wing/hardline prime minister (at least from start to finish).

If I am wrong, surely my friends will correct me; absolutely my enemies.

Golda Meir, maybe. Or as close as it gets. Parenthetically, my captain in the IDF reminded me that it was “hardline” governments that gave away Sinai and Gaza.

Which brings us back to Bibi and the beef from the media that he is hardline and does not make enough CONCESSIONS. To the Left, it is never enough.

The Palestinian Arabs must always be given more…and then more. (Not so under Trump from his Tuesday speech to Congress.)

That’s one reason why Israeli politicians running for office are always in the mood to give up Jewish territory. In fact, they compete as to who can be more “generous.”

That’s the word Ehud Olmert used. Or maybe it was Ehud Barack. I will look it up. Same thing anyway. This one AND that one was prepared to give EVERYTHING AWAY…Judea Samaria, of course, and Jerusalem, why not? Once you start being generous the sky is the limit and the Land gets forfeited to Israel’s enemies.

But the media will cheer…and can this be true? I’m reading that Sharon turned, on a dime, from lion to lamb, in order to pacify the media…and thus the tragedy of Gaza/Gush Katif.   

Up to now, Netanyahu has not bent quite that far. Not nearly. (Yes, Hevron.) Which is why they keep after him with one thing in mind – to wear him down…to break him.

That’s the trick right there, and for Trump as well, but going by the unflappable resilience of these two leaders, the media have finally met their match.  

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He is the author of the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” His sequel to that sensation is, “Slot Attendant: A novel about a Novelist.” His classic Inside Journalism thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” is being prepared for the movies. Contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com