After Biden ousted one term failed illegitimate "president" Donald J. Trump-- 81,268,924 (51.3%) to 74,216,154 (46.9%)-- many in the quasi-religious cult behind Trump either didn't understand that Biden won the election or didn't have enough allegiance to the United States to accept the results and instead turned to violence, passive resistance and a desire to start their own country where COVID could spread unmolested.
But foreign governments knew better. Of course, most foreign leaders rejoiced. But even Trump's fellow fascists and closest personal allies like Boris Johnson (UK), Narendra Modi (India), Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey), Jair Bolsonaro, Vladimir Putin and Hungarian neo-Nazi Viktor Orbán... as well as Mexican political coward, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, always frightened of Trump, quickly reached out and congratulated Biden on his big win.
But Trump didn't attack Johnson, Modi, Erdoğan, Bolsonaro, Putin, Orbán or any of the others... except Netanyahu. Israeli's newspapers have been on fire with the potty-mouthed attack Trump launched on his erstwhile ally... even though Netanyahu and Biden were friends before Trump had ever heard of Netanyahu. Today's Times of Israel reported that Señor Trumpanzee "lashed out at former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli leader’s congratulations to US President Joe Biden after he won the presidency last year in statements published on Friday... Netanyahu was actually quite late in congratulating Biden in November of last year, conspicuously doing so long hours after many other world leaders."
Señor T to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid: "He was very early. Like earlier than most. I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him."
Speaking to Ravid, the former president said no one had helped Netanyahu more than he did, and he therefore considered it a betrayal when Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his election victory, even as Trump falsely claimed that the election had been stolen.
“Nobody did more for Bibi. And I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi,” Trump said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. He was “the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with.”
“But I also like loyalty. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape. And it was on tape.
“I was personally disappointed in him,” he said. “Bibi could have stayed quiet. He made a terrible mistake.”
In a statement later Friday, Netanyahu hailed Trump, and explained why it was important that he congratulate Biden on his victory.
“Former prime minister Netanyahu really appreciates the great contribution that president Trump made to the State of Israel and its security,” the statement from Netanyahu’s office said. “He also really appreciates the importance of the strong alliance between Israel and it was therefore important for him to congratulate the incoming president.”
Trump said his decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran-- which the current administration is seeking to return to-- was “because of my relations with Israel.”
And he claimed that had he not done so, “I think Israel would have been destroyed maybe by now.”
“Now Biden is going back to the deal because he has no clue. The Israelis fought this deal and Obama wouldn’t listen to them. The decision to back out of the deal was because of my relations with Israel – not with Bibi. Those were my feelings towards Israel.”
Trump also said he had saved Netanyahu in Israel’s April 2019 election by recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. That election was the first of four inconclusive national polls in two years of political chaos until Netanyahu was removed from power by the current government.
“I did it right before the election, which helped him a lot… he would have lost the election if it wasn’t for me. So he tied. He went up a lot after I did it. He went up 10 points or 15 points after I did Golan Heights.”
Trump’s statements in the interview back up reporting by US journalist Michael Wolff, who wrote in his account of Trump’s presidency that he considered Netanyahu’s message to Biden the “ultimate betrayal.”
Trump raged to aides that Netanyahu congratulated Biden “before the ink was dry.” Wolff’s book, Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, was published in July.
...Trump’s apparent anger came despite Netanyahu being one of the last major world leaders to congratulate Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
After a conspicuously long hiatus, Netanyahu issued a statement on his personal Twitter account on November 8 2020 at 7 a.m. in Israel (midnight EST), more than 12 hours after US media networks called the presidency for Biden.
...Yair Lapid, the opposition leader at the time and now the foreign minister, was the first Israeli politician to congratulate Biden. He said then that it was “cowardly and shameful” that the country’s top leadership remained silent, and “hurts Israeli interests.”
Since ousting Netanyahu, Lapid and his coalition partner Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have made restoring bipartisan support in the US a key diplomatic goal.
Ravid, whose interview with Trump got the whole contretemps going, wrote about it for Axios last night, noting that "Netanyahu is waging a continuous campaign to win back the Prime Minister's Office while on trial for corruption [and] one of his primary political calling cards is his close relationship with key players in U.S. politics, and with one man in particular who remains hugely popular in Israel: Trump... For domestic political reasons, both Trump and Netanyahu cultivated the public perception that there was no daylight between them as they worked closely together on key issues. But by the end of his presidency, Trump had concluded that Netanyahu didn’t really want peace with the Palestinians and was using him on Iran. Trump also felt he'd helped ensure Netanyahu's political survival, but didn't get the same in return. He positively fumed about the video in which Netanyahu congratulated Biden."
Anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head more and more frequently among Trump followers-- specially among the moron QAnon component of his coalition-- and it doesn't surprise me that Trump has torn into Netanyahu while ignoring, say, Modi or Erdoğan, let alone Putin or Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, both of whom Trump is involved with financially. You'll never heard Trump saying "Fuck Putin" or "Fuck bin Salman."
