In a column for Bloomberg, a former senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin said his country has no interest in being associated with Donald Trump's racist meltdown over four Democratic lawmakers and advised the president to leave them out it.
Responding to Trump's tweets that accused the four Democrats, all women of color, of not only hating America but also Israel, Zev Chafets -- who was the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine -- claimed Trump can rest at ease because they don't need his help.
"In part of his latest Twitter barrage, President Donald Trump has been accusing four first-term congresswomen of infecting the Democratic Party with anti-Israel bias. His rant has left Israelis scratching their heads," Chafets wrote. "Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel has never felt less abandoned by the U.S. and Trump knows it. He is, after all, the president whose policies have turned America’s historic bi-partisan embrace into a big bear hug. "
"But it seems the president would like to foment a civil war among Democrats, using Israel as a wedge. Donald Trump knows full well that the Democratic Party is not about to turn into a hotbed of leftist anti-Semitism and Israel bashing like Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party," he continued. "In truth, criticism of Israel by Democrats is usually undertaken in a tone of a wise friend advising a misguided mate to steer clear of temptation."
The columnist added that comments by the Democratic lawmakers do "not come close to revealing passionate hatred” of Israel and said that Trump is out of line to drag them into it when he is trying to score political points with his base.
"In one of his tweets, he called for the progressives to apologize to Israelis. This is intended to provoke an intraparty donnybrook," he wrote. "Israel has no interest in that, any more than it requires an apology from the congresswomen. Nothing they say about this country will be any worse than the things you can hear in Israel’s own legislature, the Knesset, every day."
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