Netanyahus growing unpopularity, angering Trump, boosts Mamdanis pro-Palestine candidates for Congress

Is it all Bibi Netanyahus fault?

Theres little question that his relentless warmongering – and the chilling toll of civilian casualties – is turning Israel into a pariah state.

While Israel was an effective partner in joining – some say prodding him – in attacking Iran, the two sides are now very much at odds. 

Trump has called him “f—— crazy” and told him “youd be in prison if it wasnt for me.”

Netanyahu faces a corruption trial that has been repeatedly postponed because of Israels war against Hamas and now Iran. 

“All the Jews are sick of you,” Trump told the prime minister last year, according to the Maggie Haberman/Jonathan Swan book “Regime Change,” when the president was trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza.

Trump is particularly angry with Bibi right now because his continued attacks against in Lebanon have undermined his efforts to strike an agreement with the Iranians. 

He says hes creating a security zone to protect his country and that the U.S. would do the same thing.

There has long been a natural sympathy for Israel as the only thriving democracy in the Middle East. 

It was immediately attacked by its Arab neighbors when, in the wake of the Holocaust, it was created by the United Nations in 1948. 

While the Jewish state has since made peace with some of its neighbors – notably Egypt, thanks to Jimmy Carter – other Arab nations insist that Israel has no right to exist.

Yet Netanyahu has fiercely opposed a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestinian country, and Israel has been accused of becoming an apartheid state.

There was a new wave of global horror after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas brutally butchered more than 1,200 Israelis, of all ages, in a barbaric assault.

But even with the understandable retaliation, Netanyahus military tactics have since dissipated much of the resulting goodwill – and arguably fueled a rise in the ancient hatred of anti-Semitism around the world. 

Hamas, which sacrifices its own Palestinians by embedding them with the military, puts the death toll at 70,000.

“Though Netanyahu defeated Hamas militarily,” writes three-time Pulitzer winner Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, “he never nurtured or welcomed a moderate Palestinian alternative. So, killing all those Palestinian civilians during the war looked to the rest of the world just like that: killing, pure and simple, not to clear the way for better Palestinian governance but to clear the way for NO Palestinians in Gaza.” 

And that brings us to

Though he won the mayors race a year ago as a socialist promising free buses and government-run grocery stores, he never retracted his support of the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which means wiping Israel off the map.

But by successfully pushing three pro-Palestinian candidates for Congress in Tuesdays primary, knocking off two incumbents, the mayor scored big in New York politics. 

But he also created a huge headache for the national Democratic Party.

“Mayor Mamdani pulled through three solid Communists, and has received loud and universal applause from the Fake News Media,” Trump posted yesterday. 

Apparently the word socialist no longer packs a strong enough punch.

The problem is that most of the country is well to the right of the five boroughs.

Now it will be easy for the opposition to label the Democrats not just as socialists but as pro-Palestinian.

In fact, the Democratic Party is moving sharply toward an anti-Israel stance. Thats where the energy is, particularly among younger voters who perhaps dont remember all the wars in which the country has been attacked.

“Youd better believe this is a sign of where the party is headed, which is why Republicans are foaming at the mouth over what theyve dubbed The Commie Corridor,” said columnist Rachael Bade on her website.

The commentary has been withering. Joe Scarb