TEL AVIV — Nine days before Israelis vote, Donald Trump has told them that if they choose a leader other than Benjamin Netanyahu, “America will have to do this work ourselves.”
Trump posted the message on Truth Social on Sunday, addressed to Israelis, and called it his “complete and total endorsement” of Netanyahu’s re-election bid, according to Anadolu Agency and Middle East Eye. He described the prime minister as “a Great Warrior Prime Minister,” the Times of Israel reported, and as “Strong, Brave, and Brilliant.” It follows weeks in which Trump declined to say whom he backed. Netanyahu’s office listed no meetings with US officials for his brief September UN trip, as TEH reported.
The timing matters because the race is a dead heat. A Zman Yisrael poll by Tatika Research, taken on October 14 and 15 among 500 respondents with a 4.4-point margin of error, gave the opposition’s Jewish-led bloc 54 seats and Netanyahu’s bloc 49, the Times of Israel reported. A Maariv poll cited by Middle East Eye put each side at 51. Neither reaches the 61 needed, and the opposition bloc is led by Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief whose Yashar party led Likud 26 seats to 20 in the Zman Yisrael survey.
Naftali Bennett, who leads the B’Yachad party and polls third, said he could “get along very well with President Trump” despite the endorsement, the Times of Israel reported. Netanyahu thanked Trump on X, saying the two would “complete the mission,” per Middle East Eye. TEH found no response from Eisenkot in the coverage it reviewed.
Trump’s post also said Washington might soon “finish the job” in Iran, Middle East Eye reported. Ten days earlier, on October 8, Trump ruled out Iran strikes before the November 3 midterms in another Truth Social post, Al Jazeera reported.
Anadolu Agency noted that the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, and that the International Court of Justice is hearing South Africa’s genocide case. Palestinian authorities say Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.
The Zman Yisrael poll predates the post, and the Maariv poll’s fieldwork dates were not given, so neither can say whether the endorsement moved votes. Nor does the post, in the passages the outlets quoted, say what “this work” would involve or how it squares with the October 8 pledge.
