Trump's major foreign endorsement reveals way more about his own ambitions

U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the White House, after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 1, 2026.

For Donald Trump to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection to a seventh term exacted no price, resurfaced personal loyalty over the issues at hand, and likely will prove to have little outcome on an already close election on Oct. 27.

To have done so with as much enthusiasm as Trump mustered is of note, however, a signal as much for U.S. voters as for any Israelis harboring misgivings about returning Netanyahu, even as a coalition government leader, to office. It is Trump’s signal of aggressiveness against Iran, against Muslim restiveness and for the perpetuation of authoritative government figures who simply should be rewarded for telling others what to do.

Lost in Trump’s endorsement are the very real complications that Netanyahu and his increasingly right-wing, religious government partners are perpetrating regularly now in the West Bank, in Gaza, in southern Lebanon and Syria. Lost are the concerns in Israel itself about a leader who seems so drunk on using war powers that he will not answer basic questions about how the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas fighters came about despite warnings or about how diplomats and journalists – including Americans – are being beaten in the West Bank while Israeli defense forces look away.

Poll after poll in Israel reports the top issue as security, and Netanyahu plays on the theme to offer himself and his coalition as the only way to guarantee safety. Ignore his own criminal cases before courts or his manipulation of allies or looking away when things seem inconvenient.

As with Trump himself, Netanyahu finds himself in jagged disputes with the courts, with dissidents, with the role of non-Jews in a Jewish state, and even with religious Jews seeking continued exemption from military service. Forget that the political opposition to Netanyahu is splintered among many parties and a single, differentiating figure has not emerged in the election. What matters to Trump is to have a reliable partner who agrees with him, who shows his loyalty to him, at least most of the time.

Value of Endorsements?

By all political accounts, Trump’s endorsements domestically have been hit and miss. Largely, Trump has been successful in deciding who gets to wear the Trump/MAGA banner in races across the country, but some of his choices have made for tight races.

There is no doubt, for example, that Trump’s decision to shun Sen. John Cornyn for reelection and to choose Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who seems a bad candidate all around, has put the Texas Senate seat in play to a well-regarded Democrat, James Talarico, in a tight contest that never should have been close.

Part of the nonstop political talk on television has been about Trump’s insistence on voters pretending to put himself and his policies on the November ballot rather than the actual candidates and whatever they may be talking about.

Trump is doing the same in Israel. Indeed, to hear Trump talking, one wonders why he talks about appending Canada when what he really may want to do is to make Israel a U.S. state.

Over and over, Trump shows us he wants to boast of a successful military blitz or campaign, and he wants the spoils of war. He wants to settle wars, including Russia-Ukraine and the Middle East conflicts, with a phone call and a business deal or ten among the big authoritarian players at some mythical world chessboard,

What he does not want is the hard work of disarming Hamas or making Gaza livable for Gazans. Despite what Trump has said, it clearly is easier for him to step aside as Netanyahu makes military occupation of 70 percent of Gaza permanent without step one about feeding or providing regular medical treatment or jobs for a Hamas-free Gaza. What he does not want even to acknowledge is that Jewish settlers in the West Bank are bulldozing homes, towns and olive trees belonging to Palestinians, all to meet some perceived Biblical idea of a Judea and Samaria that has changed geographic hands a zillion times in a millennium.

What Kind of Country?

Those who write thoughtfully about the Israeli election are saying this is a referendum on what kind of a country Israel wants to be.

What is the role for Arabs in an officially Jewish state? For that matter, is this the election that overthrows the idea of a secular state that offers haven for Jews to a theocracy? What relationship other than as a constant source of money and weapons does the United States have with Israeli democracy, and will democracy itself last in Israel with yet another would-be authoritarian in charge?

That should strike a chord even in the U.S., where we too look at our elections as directional, not as anointment of a would-be royal.

None of these are concerns for Trump, of course. He wants pomp and parades, a welcome that says he has been Israel’s best friend despite 80 years of U.S. backing across party lines. It was Netanyahu who presented the Iran attack plans, and Trump who overrode the obvious concerns raised by U.S. intelligence and diplomatic advice. Trump appears to ignore when Netanyahu brushes his concerns aside, raising questions about who is the super power in this relationship.

The world – including the U.S. – is in a mess created by a lack of strategic thinking and reliance on belief in flash-bang dramatics. Where are any of the considerations of how we got here or how we are stuck in a constant cycle of Middle East violence in the issuance of a Trump election endorsement in another country?

Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.

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