news analysis
American and Israeli leaders are copying each other's actions, starting a war with their governments.
If it wasn't obvious that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes he has an ally in his fight against the country's attorney general, judges and even the head of internal security, he made it clear Wednesday night.
“In America and Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins elections, the left-wing Deep State weaponizes the justice system to prevent the will of the people from being carried out,” he wrote in a social media post. “They will not win anywhere! We are strong together.”
Trump’s brazen outburst was the latest evidence that Mr. Netanyahu and President Trump are following the same playbook to achieve strikingly similar goals: neutralize the judiciary, dismantle the oversight system that limits their powers, and discredit national security experts they believe are opposed to them.
The moves come as Mr Trump has completely rebalanced his Middle East policy to Mr Netanyahu's advantage, including giving the Israeli prime minister a free hand to resume the war in Gaza and launching US airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, a group that is Israel's sworn enemy.
Just this week in Washington, Mr. Trump called for the impeachment of a federal judge who sought to obtain key information about his mass deportation efforts, fired two Democratic members of an independent trade commission and was reprimanded by a judge who said his administration’s actions to plunder the agency responsible for foreign aid likely violated the Constitution.
In Jerusalem this week, Mr. Netanyahu’s office fired Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of the FBI, after the agency launched an investigation into the prime minister’s aides. Among other charges, the aides are accused of mishandling classified information and leaking a document to a foreign newspaper. Mr. Netanyahu’s office has vigorously denied the allegations.
