In Trump victory, Netanyahu sees himself as ‘the great winner’

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/06/netanyahu-israel-trump-president-gaza-lebanon-iran/

Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at Qatar’s Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, called Trump “a wild card,” saying he might back controversial, but increasingly popular, far-right Israeli policies like annexation of Palestinian territory, but could also lose interest in the region.

“The difference between a Trump and Harris administration is that Harris has kind of a principled commitment to Israel, and everything is subordinate to that,” he said. “Whereas for Trump he couldn’t care less about Israel and the Palestinians or anything or anyone else, provided it serves his interests.”

For Netanyahu, who critics have long contended is driven by similar sense of self-interest, Trump’s victory is a personal triumph as well, according to Talshir, the political scientist.

“The orbit of populist leaders that Netanyahu and Trump belong to and lead together,” she said, and are “trying to take liberal democracies to their authoritarian ends.”