It's not as if U.S. presidents haven't intervened here over the years, but never through official endorsements. They've never said so explicitly. Only Clinton campaigned for Peres, and Trump for Netanyahu. Senior White House officials are telling me, "We haven't seen any new polls. The polls we've seen, the ones conducted for us, still show Netanyahu roughly in the range we're seeing here." In Netanyahu's office, on the other side of the pond, as the British say, they're saying, "We didn't know this in advance. Look, we had to dig up some archival video because we suddenly discovered, on a social media platform we don't even subscribe to, that Trump had written a manifesto in support of Netanyahu." Two versions, both a bit dubious, in my opinion.
I'll tell you what's changed, in my view. First, when you're the president of the world's greatest superpower, there's no price to pay for making a mistake. Take Hungary, for example: the candidate Trump didn't want was elected. So can Hungary impose sanctions on Trump?
In the end, when you're the president of the world's most powerful superpower, everyone, even Eisenkot, even Lieberman, even Bennett, will have to deal with you. I suggest we look at this and learn, for the tenth time, the lesson we constantly refuse to learn: when it comes to Trump and Netanyahu, there's more to their relationship than meets the eye. Let me give you an example.
They've spoken numerous times over the past month, far more often than has been reported publicly. So, with all due respect to Trump's endorsement of Netanyahu, and I don't know how much of an impact it will actually have here, it's helping to shape the agenda. But what's more significant is that if they're talking this often, it's very possible that even on the issue that's truly critical to our existence, the future of the war with Iran, their cooperation is much closer than it appears.