Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy

by Seth Abramson

In Israel in fall 2016, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking forward to the end of the Obama presidency. Netanyahu has said to his aides that Obama has “no special feeling” for Israel and is dangerously foolish for wanting to “foster a kind of balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”218 Netanyahu’s belief is that Saudi Arabia must always hold the upper hand over Iran for the Jewish state to maintain its security. As for the Obama administration, by fall 2016 it has long since ceased to believe that Netanyahu earnestly wants a peace deal with the Palestinians; President Obama believes Netanyahu has deceived him and other U.S. politicians with an only illusory commitment to peace. As early as 2012, the mistrust between Obama’s team and Netanyahu’s had been such that Obama suspected the Israeli prime minister of secretly backing Mitt Romney’s presidential bid and hoping, moreover, to goad the United States into a military conflict with Iran.219 Obama’s fears about Netanyahu with respect to the 2012 election will appear prescient, given Netanyahu’s clandestine positioning vis-à-vis the 2016 Trump campaign and his hawkish posture toward Iran from 2017 onward (see chapter 10).