At least no one can accuse Donald Trump of hiding his agenda.
When Mike Huckabee, his ambassador to Israel, showed up Wednesday at Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu’s corruption trial in Tel Aviv, he hadn’t come to schmooze or testify. He wasn’t distributing evangelical offers of salvation to Jews.
Huckabee came to glower.
And, with his very presence, to deliver a stark reminder to Israelis, and in particular the three judges who would decide Bibi’s fate: The Boss says this whole trial is a witch hunt. You know how much the Boss hates witch hunts, don’t you?
Netanyahu faces charges of “bribery, fraud and breach of trust” for, allegedly, trading regulatory favors to a telecom giant in exchange for good media coverage and receiving as much as $210,000 in gifts after providing favors to well-heeled businessmen, among other counts. Netanyahu denies all the charges.
So does his ally in authoritarianism, Donald Trump.
Among what Trump spewed in a social-media post — repulsive even by his subterranean standards — was this warning:
“The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this.”
And, of course, the obligatory all-caps closer: “LET BIBI GO, HE’S GOT A BIG JOB TO DO!”
“Nice little security package you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it.”
Now, the phrase “Let my Bibi go” might somehow get set to Jewish music were it not for the fact that the guy who coined it also famously said, “the only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
And who is a human trope machine when it comes to lecturing American Jews about “disloyalty” if they don’t vote Republican to protect “your country,” Israel. Hearing about dual loyalty brings back such great memories to us Jews.
But to be fair, Trump hasn’t launched a public anti-Semitic slur in a full two weeks, dating all the way back to July 3 — when he mused about some bankers being “shylocks.”
Trump, who grew up in Queens, claimed with a reportedly straight face that he’d never hear the “word” shylock for Jews. Now, we can all agree that Trump probably didn’t first learn the term from reading William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
But, Mr. President, you don’t remember hearing “shylock” as an antisemitic thing? We’ll take that as a “cognitive decline” defense.
The art of the extortion is where Trump is very much on his game. Dispatching Huckabee bared brazen disrespect for the Israeli judicial system — a passion of Bibi’s, too — and the message wasn’t lost on Haaretz, my choice as Israel’s most reliable source of news pertaining to the U.S.
Under the headline, “Mike Huckabee's Mafioso Move at Netanyahu's Trial Has Trump's Fingerprints All Over It,” Haaretz reported this:
“Huckabee's visit to the Tel Aviv District Court during Netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial was an American, Mafioso-like intimidation tactic on a democratic ally's independent justice system for the sake of protecting its political partner…
Beyond the hypocrisy, Trump and Huckabee's advocacy for Netanyahu to be freed from his legal burdens is not driven by a pursuit of justice. Rather, the trial strictly represents a nuisance to broader American policy initiatives: (that they) supposedly rely on Netanyahu's availability as prime minister.”
Trump’s insistence on propping up Netanyahu is hardly novel in the annals of dictator-propping by the U.S., but traditionally that nefarious pastime didn’t involve our allies with democratic forms of government. This situation strikes a personal nerve with Trump. And the convicted felon let the world know:
"Netanyahu is right now in the process of negotiating a deal with Hamas, which will include getting the hostages back. How is it possible that the prime minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a courtroom all day over nothing?"
So it came to pass that Trump dispatched Huckabee much the way that, in The Godfather, Vito Corleone sent his consigliere, Tom Hagen, to Hollywood to persuade studio head Jack Woltz to cast Johnny Fontane in a film. At first, Woltz said no. He would go on to change his mind.
I believe the Israelis watched that movie and surely they remember that scene depicting what happens when at first you don’t do what the boss says.
Something about waking up to your horse’s head.
