“I have not spoken to him since (congratulating Joe Biden). “Go to c @@”, are the words used by former US President Donald Trump for former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, proving that the relations between the then leaders were not as close as they seemed.
Excerpts from this interview, which was made for a book by political journalist Barack Ravid, were published this morning and dominate the Israeli media.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the final rupture in the relations between the two occurred almost a year ago when Netanyahu congratulated the new US President Joe Biden for his election.
Before and just after the election, Trump denounced electoral fraud, challenged the result, and claimed that he should be the winner.
Netanyahu was the first Middle East leader to pick up the phone to congratulate Biden, but reporters say it took almost a month to reach out to the new president.
Trump gave Ravid two interviews, one of which lasted 90 minutes. He said Netanyahu had betrayed him despite what he had done for him during his presidency.
“The first person to congratulate him was Bibi Netanyahu, the man I did more for than anyone else,” Trump said. “Bibi could not speak at all. “He made a terrible mistake.”
He added: “I liked Bibi. I still like him. But I also like faith. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him but he also recorded it. “
Trump referred to the agreement on Iran and his long-standing friendship and relationship with the current US president.
He also said he felt that certain policies he promoted during his tenure in the White House were not recognized enough by Netanyahu, citing, among other things, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights in 2019. A year later, a settlement in the area was named Ramat Trump to honor of the former US President.
“It was a big deal,” Trump said. “People were saying at the time that it was a multi-million dollar gift. I did it before the (Israeli) election and that helped him (Netanyahu) a lot – he might have lost the election without me, the Golan Heights case gave him 10%. -15% on the polls “.
It is difficult, in fact, to assess the importance of the Golan Heights case in Netanyahu’s election victory. Ravid notes in his book that a week before the April 2019 elections, a poll by the Israeli Institute of Democracy (IDI) showed that 66% of Jewish Israelis believed that recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the region strengthened Netanyahu.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
.
