Times of Israel: The day Netanyahu helped anti-Israel Democrats gain resonance and credibility
By Eric Coretellessa
“There’s no question that this was all part of Trump’s effort to continue to use Israel as a wedge issue, and to continue to politicize Israel, because this was all part of a calculation in term of his own self-interest,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
Trump, Soifer argued, wants to use Omar and Tlaib to paint the entire Democratic Party as anti-Israel — and then run with that theme in the 2020 presidential election, as most of the American electorate remains sympathetic to the Israeli cause.
“He wants to run in 2020 against a fictional Democratic Party, one that he claims is not supportive of Israel,” she told The Times of Israel. “So he’s using these two members of Congress as examples of his fictional Democratic Party when in fact they don’t represent the majority.”
So strong was Trump’s desire to accomplish this, Sofer continued, that he resorted to “taunting Netanyahu, saying [his allowing the lawmakers into Israel] would make him look weak.”