There is a huge discrepancy in the way that USA President Trump is regarded in his own country and how he is regarded in Israel.
For many Israelis, he is extremely popular1, albeit unpredictable, although that unpredictability may help his popularity. He is the man who managed to return the last of the Israeli hostages after the 7 October massacre; he also put an end to that war. He is the man who many Israelis believe is about to start another war with Iran and possibly even bring an end to the reign of the Ayatollas. That Iran will attack Israel should USA (and possibly Israel) attack Iran is seen as collateral damage.
Every time I see Trump on Israeli news, I ask my wife whether the average American in the street is even slightly interested in what Trump is doing in foreign lands. The partial answer was shown on tv the other night: his US popularity has declined to about 40% (may be lower) which is very low for an incumbent president.
As Professor Michael Covington (who I follow for computing reasons) writes, I think February 20, 2026, may be remembered as the end of the Trump era in American politics — it may have broken Trump's spell in a way that the election of Biden did not. That is the day the Supreme Court overturned Trump's capriciously imposed tariffs. He is trying to reinstate the tariffs by other legal mechanisms, but that's not the important part.
Trump single handedly cost many Israelis a great deal of money when he began a trade war last year: the S&P 500 share benchmark funds dropped in value overnight and have not regained the momentum that they had before. I had no small amount of money linked to the S&P 500 (retirement funds) and although I switched them to Israeli share funds (that had a phenomenal yield last year), there was some loss. Not everyone was adept as I (and there are probably more people adept than me in this field) and so some probably suffered.
Internal links
[1] 2018
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 159 | Diet | Cooking, Food science, Diet, Jeff Duntemann | |
| 678 | Carole Bayer Sager - too | Carole Bayer Sager | |
| 679 | DCI Banks on television | TV series, DCI Banks, Police procedurals | |
| 1378 | My room (waiting for wonderland) - a little musical analysis | Van der Graaf Generator, Music theory |
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