Table Stakes - October 19th

Good morning everyone,

I’m Atlas, and welcome to Table Stakes!

Here’s a look at today’s topics:

• Trump’s Advisers Favored a Different Israeli Leader. He Endorsed Netanyahu Anyway.

• ‘We Failed, Unquestionably’: France Weighs Curfews After a Weekend of Riots

• Egypt Weighs Sending the Arab World’s Largest Army to Defend Saudi Arabia

Trump’s Advisers Favored a Different Israeli Leader. He Endorsed Netanyahu Anyway.

_{By: Atlas}

President Donald Trump gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his “Complete and Total Endorsement” on Sunday, Oct. 18. He also warned Israeli voters that if they chose anyone else, the United States would be left to deal with Iran alone.

“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He posted it at 9:45 a.m. CT, or 5:45 p.m. in Israel.

Trump repeated the warning to Axios by phone. Asked whether he could work with a different Israeli leader, he said: “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Who wants to take the chance?”

Israelis vote Oct. 27, in the country’s first national election since the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023. Nearly every recent poll shows neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition with the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

The post and the American stake

Trump addressed the post “To the Great People of Israel.” He called Netanyahu “a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He wrote that Iran had been “systematically destroyed, both Militarily and Financially, and unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job.” He closed: “BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Iran struck back at Israel and across the Gulf, and the war has run through this year.

Axios reported that no U.S. president had ever before explicitly and publicly endorsed a candidate in an Israeli election.

An endorsement held back for months

The Associated Press reported that Trump had “withheld” the endorsement for months as the vote neared and the two leaders’ strategies in the Middle East diverged.

Barak Ravid of Axios reported Sunday that Trump had repeatedly declined to endorse Netanyahu amid growing tensions over Iran and Gaza, and that some of Trump’s closest advisers believed his Middle East agenda would fare better if Netanyahu lost and a different government formed.

In June, Trump said he would “most likely” endorse Netanyahu but first wanted to see who else was running, The Times of Israel reported. He later told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst in a phone call, “I think it’s most appropriate for me to stay out of Israeli elections, but I may endorse somebody.” Last week, he said he had not “even thought about” backing a candidate, The Times of Israel reported.

On Sunday, Trump told Axios: “I was always going to do that. I just didn’t want to do it too soon.”

Netanyahu asks voters to listen

Netanyahu responded within minutes, posting on X a video of Trump praising him. “Together we will complete the mission!” the Hebrew caption said.

In a Hebrew video, he appealed to voters directly. “President Trump says he will do it, and that he will do it only if the two of us do it together,” he said, in The Times of Israel’s translation. “Therefore, I am asking you, listen to him: Weigh his words, and vote for me.”

In an English video thanking Trump “for your extraordinary endorsement,” he turned to American voters ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms: “If you’re worried about today’s gas prices, think of what will happen if Iran gets nuclear weapons.”

Eisenkot and Bennett respond

Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff who leads the Yashar party and is Netanyahu’s main challenger, spoke Sunday at a Tel Aviv University student event. “I have great appreciation for the US president,” he said, but “Israel is a democracy” and “Israel’s citizens are the only ones who will decide who the prime minister will be,” The Times of Israel reported.

Asked by Channel 12 whether he had tried to stop the endorsement, he said: “There were a number of meetings I don’t want to elaborate on. I requested that there be no intervention in Israel’s internal election. But I’ll deal with it.”

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the B’Yachad party, spoke at the same campus. “I know I can get along very well with President Trump,” he said. “Ultimately, in international politics, every leader works with the leader who is elected.” He added, “I’m certainly running for the job.”

What the polls show

Kan News, Israel’s public broadcaster, published a poll Sunday giving Eisenkot’s bloc 52 seats and Netanyahu’s coalition 51. It projected 23 seats for Yashar, 21 for Likud and 12 for B’Yachad.

Bloc totals differ partly because polls group small parties differently. Arab-led parties and the Reservists sit outside both blocs, and Ofer Winter’s right-wing People of Israel has hovered near the 3.25% threshold for entering parliament.

A Zman Yisrael poll published Oct. 15 put the anti-Netanyahu bloc at 54 seats and the pro-Netanyahu bloc at 49. A Channel 13 poll on Oct. 14 gave Netanyahu’s camp 51 seats and Eisenkot’s 50.

Channel 14 was the only outlet whose recent polls showed a majority, according to published poll compilations. Its survey conducted Sunday by NEXT DATA, with 559 respondents, gave the coalition exactly 61 seats, down from 62 in its previous poll, the network reported.

Israel’s prime minister is chosen through coalition-building in parliament, not by direct vote. Polls open Oct. 27.

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