Over the past 12 months, Israelis have been embroiled in a conflict of unprecedented complexity. This war, akin to a three-dimensional chess game, is a high-stakes gamble for the lives of approximately 97 hostages (out of the 250 abducted on Oct. 7, 2023). These hostages are held in an intricate network of tunnels, stretching an estimated 350 to 450 miles with about 1,500 entry and exit shafts, adding layers of intricacy to the situation.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., for the past eight years, Americans have been subjected to the bizarre, divisive, and pathological behavior of a pathetic media creation with no ethics, morals, or political foundation. Trump is the cheap snake oil salesman from the 1800s, complete with his one covered wagon of gimmicks that he offers as social, medical, and psychological elixirs to a crowd desperate for cheap, fast remedies.
His rallies are accompanied by comic relief, festive banners, patriotic music, and incoherent double-talk on everything from an impending World War III to electric sharks and the Chinese army waiting to invade from Tijuana. His followers enter into this professional wrestling match atmosphere primed to hear the racial slurs, incoherent rants, and general verbal flailing of this antique Uncle Sam relic.
Trump’s popularity partially stems from the fact that he is an archetypical figure. If the French author Victor Hugo could attend a Trump rally today, he would recognize it as the same crown that initially recoiled in horror when they saw the deformed Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” but then felt comfortable in his presence as he responded to the crowd’s jeers and insults.
What is different is that Trump’s crowds don’t recoil at his slurs and insane rants but somehow find that his empty promises salve the crowd’s economic, nostalgic, and social yearnings, as well as their propensity for violence. In American history, Huey Long, the demagogic governor of Louisiana in the 
1930s, fulfilled the exact needs with his chop suey political mix of Stalinism, McCarthyism, and European fascism. That’s why the writer Robert Penn Warren said, “My guess is he (Long) was a remarkable set of contradictions.” But let’s not insult Long. Trump is a mix of criminality, mental instability, and sociopathology.
What Bibi and Trump also have in common is their criminality. To be clear, Bibi’s criminality is dwarfed by Trump’s lifelong scams and felonies that finally caught up to him in his February 2024 $355 million civil tax fraud conviction. Trump also has four more indictments awaiting him. Still, he has stiff-armed the legal system and the wimpy Justice Department with threats and a barrage of legal filings, appeals, and other motions to stifle the inevitable.
In contrast, Bibi’s crimes are misdemeanors compared to Trump’s. However, in a smaller nation with higher ethical and moral standards, a more engaged electorate, and a more responsive parliamentary system, Bibi’s routing of the nation’s judicial system, accompanied by his earlier charges of misusing funds for catering and tiling his swimming pool, look like petty theft to most Americans. But Bibi’s manipulation of the nation’s judicial system was the last straw for the electorate. This move to limit the power of Israel’s Supreme Court was seen as blatantly self-serving to protect him from further, more severe indictments.
What unites both men is their untrustworthiness. They are fully aware of this, and it’s the foundation of their alliance when it comes to deceiving their respective nations.
Both are willing to do anything to retain power, even resorting to deceit. In Trump’s case, dishonesty, fraud, and theft have been ingrained in the Trump family for the three generations they have been in the U.S.
Bibi’s manipulation of the Hamas negotiations, which are tied to the release of all the hostages and the repositioning of the Israeli military, has the same tilt. However, it is much more complicated, ethically, morally, militarily and politically. These negotiations are crucial to the ongoing conflict; understanding them is vital to grasping the situation’s complexity.
In its most sinister version, Steven Beschloss, a reporter for the New York Times, has floated the idea that Bibi made a deal with Trump to postpone the release of any remaining hostages until after the November election. If this scheme proves true, Bibi would be Trump’s debt, and vice versa, until the end of their careers. There is no proof for this, but Beschloss raised the possibility because “it’s illegal, immoral, and thoroughly possible,” mainly because Bibi has such low credibility.
Their low credibility is because Bibi and Trump use the same tactics: the old divide and conquer strategy to remain in power. Again, Trump’s version is much more crude. Trump’s goal is to divide and ferment hatred and more divisions. Hate is the main ingredient of Trump’s electoral strategy.
Benefitting from Divisions in Israel
In Israel, Bibi also uses division to remain in power. According to a leaked 2020 memo secretly recorded by Natan Eshel, a close confidante and aide to Netanyahu, the Prime Minister admitted that his “key to success was his focus on creating division.
In an article by attorney Adrian Daniels in the Times of Israel, Netanyahu is quoted as saying, “Hate is what unites our camp.” Daniels writes that “just as Netanyahu acted to create deep divisions over the judiciary, the civil service, and now our army and security forces, his latest prioritization of the Philadelphi Corridor (a strategic area along the border with Egypt) over the return of the hostages has turned even the formerly unchallenged understanding that Israel’s deepest strength — its unbreakable commitment to bring hostages home — into another issue that divides the left and right between Israel. He believes that the sacrifice of such a value, critical until now for Israel’s national resilience and security, is preferable over the end of his coalition.” Understanding the significance of the Philadelphi Corridor is crucial to understanding the decisions and actions of the Israeli government.
So, hate is what binds both the Trump MAGA base and Bibi’s coalition. They may direct their hatred toward different people and groups. Still, their political stability hinges on exploiting the potent emotion of hate to persuade their followers that all this hate will lead to a positive outcome. However, the belief that Hate + Hate = Positive Co-Existence is a flawed formula that will never stand up to any social or political scrutiny.
