The outcome is no longer certain

Israelis are desperately looking for a US leader who can once again call the shots

The Republican opposition to Donald Trump must have breathed a sigh of relief when he recently shot himself in the foot over his remarks on abortion. The deliberate termination of a pregnancy is, and has always been, a controversial subject in many parts of the world and the United States is no exception. After his outburst, which was delivered with biblical fury, he would be jolly naive if he thought that the women of America would give him their vote. Perhaps, Ted Cruz still has a chance.

A month ago, the contest appeared to be between the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, and the apparently popular choice of the Democrats, Hilary Clinton, who, of late, has radiated a robust empathy for the Hispanic immigrants in the United States. I do not have an American passport, but if I did, I would canvass for the Ashkenazi Bernie Sanders. Currently, he appears to be the only real friend the US Muslims and the Mexicans have. Some of his supporters are people of the Jewish faith who, I have been told by a score of Americans of Pakistan origin, get on extremely well with the people who read the Torah.

But most of Bernie’s supporters are gentiles. They are, like him, people who hate bigotry and racism and all kinks of oppression, whether the victims were the Jews or the gypsies in Nazi Germany, Native Americans who were put into reservations by the white settlers who stole their land, or African-Americans who came over from West Africa as slaves — an enterprise in which Arab slave traders played a disreputable and despicable hand. Some of his recent successes in three states have greatly pleased his supporters, and it is nice to know there are still some people in the United States that are not behaving like the brown shirts in the Nurenberg rallies. But he is still trailing behind Hillary Clinton.

Today, a few heads of state are worried about who is likely to win in the November election in the United States. Topping the list is Benyamin Netanyahu — and it was high time this man had a few sleepless nights. A Hillary Clinton victory is not going to please him for her thorny relations with Israel’s prime minister began in the mid-1990s when her husband clashed with the first Netanyahu government.

The non-cooperation continued when she was Obama’s secretary of state and Obama disagreed with Netanyahu on his deal with Iran, Israeli settlements and a number of other contentious issues. And, if by some miracle, Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, he would be equally unhappy, especially when Sanders boycotted Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress and his opposition to Israeli settlements is well known.

That leaves Donald Trump, who comes across as an American leader who wants to make the United States great again. His animosity against the Muslims must have gone down well with Netanyahu. The Israelis have always gotten on well with the Republicans who have asserted themselves abroad and they are desperately looking for a US leader who can once again call the shots.

But… is the highly unpredictable Trump the man they are looking for? Is he going to sing Israel’s praises or is he going to cancel the billions they receive every year for being a loyal ally when he appears to prefer an isolationist policy for the United States instead of continuing to act as the policeman of the world? Remember what he said in one of his many appearances on CNN? “Why the hell should we continue to fight the battles of other countries and lose thousands of American men and women in the process? Let the Arabs fight their own battles”. So, is Jewish money now going to promote Ted Cruz?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2016.

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