President Donald Trump is frustrated with Israel’s ongoing political deadlock, and has spoken negatively about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, expressing his disappointment with the Israeli leader, after Netanyahu failed to win reelection in either of Israel’s two general elections in 2019.
According to a report by Yediot Ahronot Sunday, which cited multiple White House sources, the Trump administration is “discouraged and frustrated” by Israel’s ongoing political crisis and failure to establish a new government following the 21st and 22nd Knesset elections.
"Americans are discouraged and frustrated by Israeli politics and the current political crisis, which has prevented the White House from unveiling the political part of the ‘Deal of the Century," a White House source said, referencing the Trump administration’s much anticipated Middle East peace plan, which was to have been released following Israel’s general election in April, but which has been pushed off due to the ongoing political stalemate.
The White House sources also said that President Trump had said that he was “very disappointed” in Prime Minister Netanyahu, and that Trump had spoken about him in a negative manner.
The president has decided, the sources added, to distance himself from Netanyahu, whom he had previously embraced as a key ally – including inviting Netanyahu to the White House for a public signing of the executive order recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, which took place just ahead of the April 9th elections.
Ahead of the September 17th election, however, Trump did not offer Netanyahu the same kind of support because, as one White House source said, “The president doesn’t like losers.”
Last week, Trump publicly expressed his frustration with Israel’s political stalemate, telling an Orthodox Jewish organization that Israel ‘keeps having elections’ without electing a premier.
“What kind of a system is it over there?” Trump quipped. “They are all fighting and fighting. We have different kinds of fights. At least we know who the boss is. They keep having elections and nobody is elected.”
Trump also boasted that he has “an approval rating of 98 percent” in Israel, and joked that “if anything happens here”, a reference to the impeachment inquiry against him, “I’m making a trip over to Israel and I’d be prime minister there very soon.”
The President also spoke about his decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“I gave you, in Jerusalem, the embassy. That was a big deal,” Trump said, adding he was able to move the embassy because he purposefully did not call back Arab leaders who opposed the move.
“Just tell them I’m very busy, I’ll call them back,” he said. “And then I did it, we got it done, it’s done. And then I announced it and then I went into the office, I made about 25 calls… I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s done already, there’s nothing I could do about it.’ It’s much easier. I say, ‘I’m sorry, I wish I could have gotten back to you sooner.”