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Out of office, defeated by Joe Biden, the then-former US President Donald Trump turned on one of his closest allies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Interviewed by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid months after his November 2020 defeat, Trump bitterly and falsely denounced Netanyahu for having been the first world leader to congratulate Biden on a victory that Trump has never stopped disputing.

“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with,” railed Trump. “I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him.”

Now, it’s happening again.

Trump hasn’t stopped talking to Netanyahu. Anything but. They’re on the phone all the time. And the president hasn’t used the f-word to tell the prime minister their partnership is over and he can go to hell.

But he has confirmed calling Netanyahu “fucking crazy” in a recent phone call over Israel’s efforts to stop the Hezbollah terror group’s relentless rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel.

He has repeatedly belittled Netanyahu by publicly declaring that the prime minister of Israel “will do whatever I want him to do” when it comes to the battle against Iran and its terrorist proxies.

And on Tuesday, he punched the premier below the belt by suggesting that Netanyahu might not run in the national election three to four months from now. “I don’t know, he’s had an amazing career. Does he want to continue?” he mused to ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “Because, you know he’s a wartime prime minister.”

Most Israelis, 61 percent according to an opinion poll published earlier Tuesday, don’t want Netanyahu to run again either.

As prime minister for over 15 of the past 17 years, he is widely blamed for failing to prevent the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacre, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. He is bitterly resented by many for failing to resign in its aftermath. And he is consistently opposed by most of the country in refusing to countenance the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, the only body empowered to subpoena witnesses and get to the bottom of what went wrong, because he knows it would almost certainly recommend his departure from public life.

But Netanyahu has given absolutely no public intimation that he might voluntarily depart the scene — notably declining to so much as respond to an effort by President Isaac Herzog to have his lawyers enter substantive talks on a plea bargain to resolve his endless corruption trial, since any such deal would likely require he step down. (The premier’s Likud on Wednesday stated that Netanyahu would indeed be running for reelection.)

In fact, he is currently intensifying his efforts to bolster his election prospects — to the horror of some parts of the electorate and the delight of others.

He is attempting to resurrect his relations with the two ultra-Orthodox parties, by blitzing legislation through the Knesset to financially reward their constituencies, having narrowly failed to muster a parliamentary majority that would enshrine the outrageous exemption from military service of ultra-Orthodox males.

He and his far-right thug of a police minister, Itamar Ben........

© The Times of Israel