Imagine if Vice President Harris publicly called on a foreign nation that has a history of interfering in our elections to help her defeat Donald Trump. The response would’ve been wall to wall media coverage and members of the GOP would’ve been calling for a DOJ Investigation.
But when Donald Trump did that exact thing on Thursday, it barely received any coverage from the corporate media. Yet there was Trump at an event organized by Trump’s close ally Mariam Adelson—the widow of billionaire Sheldon Adelson and a supporter of far-right policies in Israel—calling on Israel to defeat Harris. I don’t mean Trump inferred he wanted the help of Israel to win, he stated it point blank.
That is when Trump declared: “More than any other people on Earth. More than any other people on Earth, Israel, I believe, has to defeat her. You know that?”
He then repeated that Israel—not Jewish Americans—need to help him defeat Harris, stating, “And I’ve never said this before. And I’m thinking, Miriam, more than any people on Earth, Israel has to defeat her. I really believe that.”
There is no wiggle room here. Trump twice asked Israeli leaders to help him defeat Harris in a room filled with people like Adelson who has very close ties to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Where is the outrage that Trump wants a foreign nation to interfere in our election?!!
What could Netanyahu do to help Trump? Well one example is the online interference type campaign they were engaged in 2016 that I detail below. Or far worse and what is what we are seeing over the past few days and that is spark a deadly war with Lebanon.
As retired US Army Major Harrison Mann—who worked in U.S. Defense intelligence— told me by email, Netanyahu could “escalate the conflict with Hezbollah and provoke a regional war” resulting in Hezbollah responding with a more lethal attack on the Israeli homeland. That would cause devastation in Israel and a spike in oil prices. He added, “Trump will be able to point to this as the Democrats’ failure that only he can fix.”
Mann—who is Jewish and resigned from the US military in November over the US continuing to supply weapons to Netanyahu that were killing civilians in Gaza with no conditions—noted that, “Netanyahu can of course also continue to make additional public, English-language statements blaming Biden for holding back Israel.” The retired Major concluded that this military action by Netanyahu would “be far more effective than the clandestine election interference and influence operations that Israel is also pursuing.”
To that end, in the last few days we’ve seen an unparalleled escalation of attacks by Netanyahu on not just Hezbollah—but the nation of Lebanon. It began with the pager bombings that may have been targeting Hezbollah militants but ended up killing and wounding innocent people including children. In the days that followed, Netanyahu’s military bombed targets in the suburbs of Beirut that killed 45 people, including three children and seven women. Two Hezbollah leaders were killed as well but we as we’ve seen in Gaza, there is no limits to the civilians Netanyahu will kill.
And then there is the more traditional type of online election interference. For those unaware, the Israeli government under Netanyahu has a documented history –even noted in Israeli media outlets like Haaretz--of interfering in other nation’s elections, including the United States, to elect people supportive of his right wing views.
That was the very point made by The Nation in a detailed deep dive article in 2023 titled, “The Trump Campaign’s Collusion With Israel.” As The Nation explained, “In the spring of 2016, no issue was more important to Benjamin Netanyahu than Donald Trump winning the White House.” The reason was simple: “The GOP presidential candidate was key to everything he was after, from ending the Iran nuclear agreement, to recognizing Jerusalem—rather than Tel Aviv—as Israel’s capital, to continuing the occupation of” the West Bank.
To that end, Netanyahu personally directed a “covert operation” that “aimed to use secret intelligence to clandestinely intervene at the highest levels in the presidential election on behalf of Trump.”
The Times of Israel in 2020 even addressed this plot noting Trump close ally Roger Stone was the point person for key Israeli figures, writing, “the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was “going to be defeated unless we intervene” and promised “we have critical intell[sic].”
People can debate if the actions directed by Netanyahu actually contributed to Trump’s win in 2016. The key point is that Trump knows all of this occurred. So when Trump—who was convicted of 34 felonies for cheating in the 2016 election--says publicly, he wants “Israel” to defeat Harris, he is sending a message to Netanyahu—who is part of the GOP apparatus—to help him again in his time of need.
Trump publicly asking Israel to help defeat Harris, of course, conjures up Trump’s infamous comment during the 2016 campaign when he declared about Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” And as the Mueller report detailed, “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.” Adding importantly about Trump: “the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."
The difference is that comment by Trump received a tsunami of media coverage. But when Trump says the same thing to Israel—twice--for some reason corporate media doesn’t feel this merits coverage.
I do applaud the media who covered Trump’s dangerous comments at that same event where he claimed if he loses it is at least partly the fault of Jewish Americans. Referring to a poll that Trump claimed showed him with only 40% support among American Jews he stated, “I’m not going to call this a prediction, but, in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%.” (In reality, the poll showed Trump with even less support at 25%.)
The Harris campaign rightfully slammed Trump’s remarks and Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff who is Jewish, posted on Twitter a full throated denunciation: “Trump once again fanned the flames of antisemitism by trafficking in tropes blaming and scapegoating Jews…This is dangerous and must be condemned.”
Emhoff is 100% correct. Those remarks must be loudly condemned. But the same is true for Trump publicly calling on Israel—and his close ally Netanyahu--to help him defeat Harris.
Trump is currently demanding a new law be passed to expand punishments for non-citizens voting in our elections. (It’s already been a crime for decades.) But to Trump if a foreign nation—be it Russia, Israel, China or any other--wants to influence our elections, that is fine to as long as they are helping him.
But we shouldn’t be fine with this. And alarmingly the failure of the corporate media to cover this issue increases the chances Netanyahu will do exactly as Trump is asking.
Below is my full interview with retired US Army Major Harrison Mann conducted earlier in the week before Trump’s recent comment calling on Israel to help him defeat Harris. Mann shares what was going on behind the scenes in terms of Gaza policy and why to him as a proud Jewish American that “Never Again” means “Never Again” to any group.
Thank you for bringing this up, Dean. I hadn't heard about it. Okay, first of all, let me state that I am Jewish and I am absolutely appalled by Israel's behavior. Second, isn't this exactly the kind of thing that got Trump impeached? Third, how can Jews support someone who wants to turn the US into a Christian country? And last, for now, where is Merrick Garland? No, wait, there's one more thing: that thing with the pagers was a war crime. Netanyahu should be in the Hague. (I do not support Hezbollah or Hamas but I do believe in acting in a civilized manner and that and Israel's treatment of Gaza are not it.)
I have argued for months that Trump, maybe directly, maybe via Kushner, was colluding with Netanyahu to keep the war going thru the election. It damages Biden, especially in Michigan because Joe can't bring himself to cut the weapons pipeline that keeps Bibi in bombs. In spite of the fact that Bibi, charged war criminal, is using those bombs to murder Palestinian civilians both in Gaza and on the West Bank. We know that Bibi needs to keep the war going in order to stay out of prison. We know that Trump needs to win in November to stay out of prison. Their interests absolutely intersect. The cat almost came out of the bag when Jared, moron that he is, spoke publicly about wanting to build beachfront condos in Gaza.