By Shelagh Fogarty

I was struck listening to Donald Trump’s speech today, not least because of its tone, which echoed that of Benjamin Netanyahu’s earlier address to the Knesset.

What caught my ear most was the moment Trump seemed to urge Israel to pardon Netanyahu, to wipe away the corruption charges that have shadowed him for years. Who exactly he was appealing to was unclear - the Knesset, perhaps, or the Israeli public. But the message was unmistakable. It was a call for political absolution.

It’s hard to ignore the sense that Trump is trying, in public at least, to rehabilitate Netanyahu. And for Netanyahu, Trump may well be his last hope of political survival. In Israel, it’s Trump who is seen as the hero who got the hostages home, not Netanyahu. When the American envoy, Steve Witkoff, mentioned the prime minister’s name in........

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