Amid draft law battle, Bibi exudes confidence

E

ven a brilliant Israeli campaign strategist flush with Qatari cash could not have bought a campaign launch as effective as the one Netanyahu received at Trump’s New Year gala.

A pronouncement like Trump’s — that had the great leader Netanyahu not stood at Israel’s helm during wartime, the country would no longer exist — is not like anything we’ve heard in the past two years, not even on Channel 14, the Fox News-on-steroids of the Israeli right. Had a shofar blast sounded at such decibels, the Movement for Quality Government, ever eager to petition against every government move, would presumably have rushed to the High Court demanding an end to the propaganda broadcasts.

All that was missing was for the president to conclude with a familiar Hebrew maxim from the sources: Vote Netanyahu and be forgiven; forgive and vote Netanyahu. And perhaps that, too, will yet happen — when the American president lands in the Holy Land to receive the Israel Prize, just months before the next elections (should they indeed be brought forward, as increasingly seems likely).

Trump is broadcasting a clear message to the Israeli voter: The strongest man in the world sees Netanyahu as the only leader capable of preserving and strengthening Israel’s most critical asset — its relationship with the United States. Against such election propaganda, no High Court justice will be able to issue a stop order.

At their sixth meeting within a single year, the same ritual repeated itself. Commentators back home drone on about Trump and Netanyahu’s supposedly limping relationship, only to take a sharp kick to the knee at the moment of truth, as President Trump’s statements shatter their gloomy forecasts.

That moment when the two leaders stand before the press is usually just the trailer for unprecedented cooperation, the fruits of which often become clear only months later — as with the meeting that preceded the joint strike on Iran.

Trump’s very first meeting with Netanyahu, held immediately after his election and before he entered office, took place at his Florida estate. Trump closed the ledger on six meetings in 2025 at that same location, with phenomenal results: joint military actions and praise so effusive that even Bibi himself, back when he defiantly donned rose-colored glasses, would not have dared dream of it.

On Trump’s personal index of press-conference declarations — events that often turn into waterfalls of words and verbal quick-draws — it is precisely the remarks delivered at the opening of the show, usually pre-coordinated, that carry extra weight.

Disagreements between an Israeli prime minister and a US president have always existed. But this week, Trump seemed intent on sweeping those disputes under the Persian rug. In the first part of their joint appearance, Trump sounded as though he and Netanyahu were “singing from the same hymn book,” focused on Netanyahu’s number one objective: halting Iran’s military buildup.

Taking stock of the Trump–Bibi meetings leaves no doubt about the true nature of the relationship — and it should also serve as a final tally for the slanted commentary that has repeated itself in the same nagging tone, with a stubborn refusal by the serially wrong forecasters to learn from their own mistakes.

On the lush greens of Mar-a-Lago’s golf courses, the impression was unmistakable. Those many Israeli commentators who missed every hole and struggled to find the fairway, even when chauffeured in a golf cart, would not have been hired at Trump’s complex — not even as ball boys.

Another Man in the Right Place

“A wise man speaks gently and with respect, and that’s how I conduct myself, even facing the legal advisers,” Boaz Bismuth told me — a gentleman who prefers to speak about himself rather than against his fellow Knesset members.

As the Knesset battle over the draft law rages on, the chareidi choice of Bismuth as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is proving, in retrospect, to be the right man in the right place. The road to securing even cautious support from the Knesset’s legal advisers for the legislation is long and strewn with obstacles. But without Bismuth at the committee helm, we would by now have seen full alignment of the committee and Knesset legal advisers with the position of the attorney general.

Case in point: Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon appeared before the committee and tore the proposed framework for sanctions to shreds. But the committee and Knesset legal advisers did not rush to join the chorus. Bismuth once again proved that, unlike many coalition members, he knows how to walk between the raindrops — even on the rainiest day of 2025.

In any other scenario, the opposition would have squeezed lemonade out of this lemon, rallying all the legal advisers under one umbrella — those of the Knesset and the government alike. Instead, Bismuth managed to secure the cautious support of the committee legal adviser.

Bismuth’s able steering skills freed his boss to take care of the high-level work. Netanyahu himself, like any responsible business owner at the end of the fiscal year, sought to take inventory before jetting to his Florida meetings. First came the chareidim: Against the reports about a looming meeting of Agudas Yisrael’s Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, Bibi wanted to make sure that the leaders of Degel HaTorah and Shas remained firm in their support. Agudas Yisrael’s vote, in Netanyahu’s eyes, remained an enigma; his assessment was that if Goldknopf and Tessler alone voted against, the legislative course could still be navigated successfully.

Netanyahu completed his inventory across the rest of the coalition as well. Within Likud itself, the balance of power appears unchanged. The two marked as potentially lost votes are Yuli Edelstein and Sharren Haskel. As for the rest, Netanyahu believes he can bring them to the plenum one by one and secure their support.

Bibi feels that his down payment to the chareidim has already been made — when he stood at the Knesset podium and spoke in praise of Torah learners. From here on, the burden of proof lies with the chareidim, who are expected to deliver the goods and express their support for the law — with both voice and finger.

From abroad, Netanyahu made it clear to the skeptics that the very fact that Bismuth is pressing the accelerator in committee proves that no directive was issued from above to delay the legislation — quite the opposite: to fast-track it.

Netanyahu landed back in Israel draped in praise, buoyed by a Trump tailwind. The president threatened Hamas while simultaneously making good on his threats against Venezuela’s leader, Maduro. But on the home front, this is an emergency landing. The High Court continues to carve into the already exposed flesh of chareidi budgets, and passing a draft law — despite good intentions — seems further away than ever.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1094)