Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expected indictment on corruption charges has Republican lawmakers bracing for the departure of a man whose close personal relationship with American conservative leaders has shaped U.S.-Israeli relations for the last decade.
“Bibi is perhaps the best partner we’ve ever had, so of course there is anxiety about losing him,” a Republican congressman, using Netanyahu’s nickname, told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans have worked closely over the years with Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister since 2009, after a short spell in the top job from 1996 to 1999. At their invitation, he denounced former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal in an address to a joint session of Congress.
Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital during his first year in office and withdrew from the Iran deal in May 2018. Both decisions were welcomed by Netanyahu and congressional Iran hawks.
Last month, Netanyahu and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made headlines at a U.S.-led ministerial in Warsaw, as Arab and Israeli officials assembled for the first time since 1991. The gathering in Poland was focused on Iranian aggression. “U.S.-Israeli relations under Trump are better than ever,” the lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, continued. “Maybe this is a good time for that transition to occur, if it has to.”
A corruption scandal could force that transition. Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced Thursday that he would pursue an indictment on bribery, fraud, and breach of trust charges. Netanyahu has the right to try to quash the accusation in a pre-indictment hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.
The attorney general’s decision comes at an especially bad time for Netanyahu, who is already in danger of losing his job in Israel’s April 9 elections.
Netanyahu’s situation left some prominent lawmakers tight-lipped. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who praised the embattled prime minister’s “heroic — even Churchillian” opposition to the Iran deal in 2015, declined to discuss the strategic significance of the threat to Netanyahu’s career. So did Rhode Island’s Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“U.S. can’t really weigh in,” the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano, who advised Trump’s presidential transition, told the Washington Examiner. “No way that helps anyway. U.S. support is for the state of Israel. That’s not going to change, regardless of the course on domestic developments in Israel. The U.S. message should be simple and clear: ‘We will be there for you no matter what.'”
[Also read: Netanyahu hastily deletes tweet calling for ‘war with Iran’]
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman James Risch, R-Idaho, took that tack, without drawing conclusions about Netanyahu’s fate.
“Our relationship is with the Israeli people,” he said. “Certainly, we’ve had a really — and continue to enjoy — a really good relationship with Netanyahu. So, I mean, at this point, I think it’s all speculation.”
In private, the allegations have lawmakers preparing for life after Netanyahu. “A transition has to happen there at some point,” the Republican congressman said. “He won’t live forever.”
