If you follow Israeli politics, this comment from Trump:
“I mean one of the problems we have or one of the reasons we're so ineffective, you know, they're trying to, they're using them as shields. It's a horrible thing,"
"But we're fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families," Trump said.
"When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families."
has a familiar ring to it. The exhortations to kill families echoes statements by senior right-wing Israeli ministers calling the children of suspects “little snakes”. The language about “human shields” is directly lifted from Benjamin Netanyahu’s justifications for attacks on Gaza homes that killed entire families (including hundreds of children), last year.
Trump’s position on Syrian refugees also echoes Netanyahu’s. Back in September, the Israeli left pressed the ruling right-wing government to take in Syrian refugees:
Isaac Herzog, the leader of the center-left Labor Party and head of the opposition, stirred a heated national debate over the issue after he said on Saturday that “Jews cannot remain indifferent when hundreds of thousands of refugees are seeking safe harbor.” He added, “Our people experienced firsthand the silence of the world,” alluding to the Holocaust, “and cannot be indifferent in the face of the rampant murders and massacres taking place in Syria.”
Netanyahu’s response to the pleas to accept refugees presaged Trump’s:
"Israel is not indifferent to the human tragedy of the refugees from Syria and Africa," Mr Netanyahu told Sunday's cabinet meeting. "But Israel is a small country, a very small country, that lacks demographic and geographic depth; therefore, we must control our borders, against both illegal migrants and terrorism.
That is the essence of what Trump said a month later on Syrian refugees, minus the “small country” bit. Except of course, the Donald said it in a tone fit for the comments section on Stormfront.
Netanyahu’s colleagues in Likud openly mocked the Israeli left for its sympathy towards refugees fleeing ISIS:
Yisrael Katz, a Likud minister, suggested that Mr. Herzog should “at least” offer to host the refugees in his own home, following the example of the prime minister of Finland.[...]
Mr. Herzog replied to his critics with a post on Facebook on Sunday, writing, “You have forgotten what it is to be Jews. Refugees. Persecuted.”
What makes this worse is that some of the Syrian refugees are actually Palestinians expelled by Israeli forces in 1947/48 or 1967. The UN says 560,000 Palestinian refugees were living in its camps in Syria prior to the war. The Palestinian Authority has asked that they be brought back to the West Bank/Gaza and requested the UN pressure Israel to let them enter. After the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk was taken over by ISIS in April, 90% of it’s 150,000 residents were displaced, many for the second or third time in their lives.
Netanyahu’s government has not responded to those pleas, though Israel shares a border with Syria.
Trump publicly endorsed Netanyahu for re-election in 2013, saying this:
Donald Trump expressed frustration that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot be president of the United States in an interview Tuesday with The Jerusalem Post.
Netanyahu, who spent much of his childhood in a Philadelphia suburb, cannot be US president, because he was born in Israel. Trump led high profile, unsuccessful efforts to prove that US President Barack Obama was not born in America and even offered to donate money to charity if Obama produced his birth certificate.
"I think he would have been a great president of the United States,” Trump said in a telephone interview.
Trump also endorsed Netanyahu for 2015, saying:
“You truly have a great prime minister in Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s a winner, he’s highly respected, he’s highly thought of by all,” Trump said in the 30-second spot. “Vote for Benjamin — terrific guy, terrific leader, great for Israel.”
This is the campaign where Netanyahu won by race-baiting, saying Arabs “were voting in droves”. Along with Trump’s adulation for Netanyahu comes disdain for Obama:
“I have many Jewish friends that support Obama and I say, ‘Why?’ and they can’t explain why. They support him, they give him money, they give him campaign contributions,” Trump told radio host Michael Savage in February. “This is the worst enemy of Israel.”
The Israeli press figured out Trump’s alignment with Likud a while ago. Here’s Bradley Burston writing in Haaretz:
When you think about it, Trump's real mistake is only natural: He's running in the wrong party. In the wrong country.
He should be here in Israel. Have we got the party for him. If only he would consider running with Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud. He would be perfect. He'd fit right in. It's not just the comb-over and the billions. It's not just that Trump issued a vigorous video endorsement of Netanyahu during the last election campaign.
It's the racism.
As if this wasn’t already cringe-worthy enough, Netanyahu leads a party founded by two unrepentant terrorists. Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir both became Prime Ministers of Israel. They were Netanyahu’s mentors and together responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of civilians as heads of Irgun and Lehi in the 1940s.The unprosecuted war criminal Ariel Sharon found a political home in Likud as well. It’s also worth noting that the “human shield” claim became popular after human rights organizations widely publicized the IDF’s use of Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank and Gaza.