Trump Netanyahu News: Israel Vote and Iran War Threat
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a televised appearance late on Sunday night to boast of his endorsement from Donald Trump on the eve of Israel’s election, suggesting that the two leaders could restart their war against Iran if he wins — and that the war would only happen with him in power. The message, delivered less than two days before Israelis vote, turned the American president’s backing into the centrepiece of Netanyahu’s closing argument, and turned the threat of a new war into a campaign promise.
“US President Donald Trump has come with a friendship that has never existed before between an Israeli prime minister and an American president. And it is doubtful we will ever have such a friendly president again,” Netanyahu said. “He has another two years, and he says he is calling on you to vote for me.” Earlier on Sunday, Trump had posted his own message to Israeli voters: “Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister, we have to finish the job that we started!”
Netanyahu went further than a simple endorsement claim. He said Trump was willing to take action “that would finally, finally, remove the Iranian threat” — but only as long as Netanyahu himself remains in power. “And I have already instructed the Mossad and the IDF to bring down this regime, to bring down this regime because that is the only way to put an end to this threat,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s intelligence service and military. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump Netanyahu News: The Endorsement on the Eve of the Vote
The endorsement is the culmination of weeks of pressure. Trump said in June that he would “most likely” endorse Netanyahu’s re-election but wanted to see who else was running — a caveat that came as Israel’s strikes in Lebanon frustrated Iran peace talks and drew expletive-laden criticism from Trump. Reporting over the weekend showed how hard Netanyahu had worked for it: according to a report carried by i24NEWS, citing Axios, he pressed Trump for more election support in two calls in three days, suggesting wording for the endorsement. Likud denied that any request had been made.
The endorsement matters because the election is genuinely close. Tuesday’s vote is Israel’s first since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks — the first chance for voters to deliver a verdict on the worst security failure in generations and the wars that followed. Netanyahu’s leading opponent is Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist former military chief of staff who leads a new party, Yashar, and who has emerged as his principal challenger. Eisenkot responded by praising Trump himself, calling him “a true friend of Israel” and adding: “I value his efforts and his commitment to Israel’s security, and I am confident that he will work in full cooperation with any leader chosen by the people.”
Eisenkot’s response was carefully aimed. By praising Trump while rejecting the idea that the endorsement should decide the election, he sought to neutralise Netanyahu’s strongest card without attacking the American president. Reuters also reported that Eisenkot has accused Netanyahu of fear-mongering — the charge at the heart of the campaign’s final days.
Iran War News: ‘Finish the Job’ and the Threat to Tehran
The war threat is not abstract. Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Netanyahu in February, and the conflict is now in its ninth month. Netanyahu’s Sunday remarks — that he has already instructed the Mossad and the IDF to bring down the Iranian regime — were the most explicit statement yet that he intends to resume it, and that he regards the election as the licence to do so. His claim that Trump is willing to take action that would “finally, finally, remove the Iranian threat” presents the war as unfinished business.
The day before his television appearance, Netanyahu posted an AI-generated image depicting a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv, telling the public just two days before the election that voting for anyone other than him could expose Israelis to the danger of a “second Holocaust.” The post argued Israel has a limited window to confront Iran while Trump remains in office. The image contradicted Netanyahu’s own repeated insistence that Israel and the United States had devastated Iran’s nuclear programme in the 2025 and 2026 conflicts. At the United Nations last month he said “we devastated Iran’s atomic weapons,” and in March he said that, as a result of Israel’s strikes, Iran can “no longer threaten our existence.”
Critics have accused Netanyahu of pushing for a renewal of the war to influence or delay the October 27 vote, a charge he has denied. But the military signals of the past week point in the same direction as his rhetoric. According to multiple reports, the Israel Air Force last week sent dozens of fighter jets and refuelling aircraft over Syria and Iraq toward the Iranian border, on a flight path resembling an attack on Iran, and only turned back shortly before reaching Iranian territory. Israel reportedly told the Trump administration ahead of time, and indicated the flight was a show of force to deter a pre-election Iranian attack.
Behind the scenes, the disagreement over timing has become public. CNN reported that Netanyahu has been pushing Trump to partner with him in a renewed assault on Iran before the Israeli and US midterm elections, but that Trump has not agreed. “Netanyahu really wanted and tried to convince Trump for a joint attack in Iran before the elections, and Trump did not give a green light,” an Israeli security source told CNN. Another source said Israel had spent the past week lobbying Washington, while Trump and senior US officials asked Israel to hold off, indicating Washington would agree to joint operations soon. Netanyahu’s office rejected the report, describing it as “fake news.”
The reason for the delay, according to the same reporting, is practical as well as political. The head of the Israeli military, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, told General Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, that an attack before the election would lead to the postponement of the vote — and recent US intelligence assessments indicate that Netanyahu and his allies “still lack a clear strategic objective” for another round of conflict. Netanyahu and Zamir are reportedly engaged in an “unprecedented confrontation” over military action relating to Iran that defence officials fear could lead to a “miscalculation” before the election. Eisenkot, in a speech shortly before the weekend’s revelations, warned: “I see the polls, I know the data, and I know Netanyahu. He’ll stop at nothing — no lie, no extreme measure — to stay in power.”
The American side, meanwhile, is preparing as if the war will resume, just not yet. CNN reported on Monday that US forces could be ready to strike within 96 hours of receiving an order, with sufficient forces already deployed, and that the most likely window is after the November 3 midterm elections and before the end of the year. The target list spans energy infrastructure, military sites and nuclear facilities. The question, in Washington’s telling, is when, not if.
Israel Election: Polls Point to Deadlock, Not a Majority
For all the drama of the final days, the polls suggest the election will settle very little. Israelis vote for party lists, not individual candidates, and in a system with 36 parties in play and a 3.25 percent threshold for entering the 120-seat Knesset, no party has ever won a majority alone. A prime minister needs 61 seats to form a government, and the final polls put neither bloc within reach of it.
The latest Channel 12 opinion poll puts Eisenkot first with 23 seats, ahead of Likud with 21, though other pollsters differ sharply. On the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, Likud is projected to take 30 seats and Eisenkot about 20. A KAN poll had Eisenkot ahead 43 percent to 38 percent on who is better suited to be prime minister. The final surveys, published over the weekend, told a consistent story of deadlock. Kan 11 projected Yashar at 22 seats and Likud at 20, with Netanyahu’s bloc at 50 and the opposition at 52; Channel 13 had Yashar at 22 and Likud at 19, with the blocs at 50 and 54; and i24NEWS, the outlier, put Likud first at 26 seats, Yashar at 21, and Netanyahu’s bloc at 59 against 47 for the opposition.
The final Maariv poll had the opposition’s change bloc strengthening to 54 seats against 48 for Netanyahu’s bloc, after the prime minister’s coalition lost three seats in a week. The shift came as Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party fell just below the 3.25 percent threshold with 3 percent of the vote. Among the opposition parties, the most significant change was the rise of former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad party, which gained two seats to reach 15, while the Democrats, led by Yair Golan, gained one to reach 10. Eisenkot’s Yashar remained unchanged at 21 seats, and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu remained at eight.
Most polls put Netanyahu’s bloc — made up of Likud, two far-right parties led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, and two ultra-Orthodox parties — at 49 to 55 seats, short of the 61-seat majority. The opposition, which looks strong on paper, is deeply fragmented: Eisenkot has Bennett and Liberman to his right and Golan’s Democrats on his left, and Bennett and Liberman have not endorsed Eisenkot and both have their own premiership aspirations. The result may launch Israel’s next political crisis rather than settle it: election night usually settles very little, and the coalition calculus that follows can take weeks or months.
What Happens Next: Tuesday’s Vote and the War Decision
What happens next begins on Tuesday, when Israelis vote in the first election since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. The count will show whether Netanyahu’s closing argument — Trump’s endorsement, the Iran threat, and the claim that only he can finish the job — moved voters, or whether Eisenkot’s steadier message carried the day. But even a clear result would not end the argument: with neither bloc near 61 seats, the days after the vote will be consumed by coalition negotiations.
The war decision will follow the political one. Trump has twice endorsed Netanyahu’s candidacy and has not endorsed an attack before the elections, but the reporting from Washington suggests the United States is prepared to join a renewed campaign soon after the American midterms. Netanyahu, for his part, has now told Israeli voters in plain terms that he has instructed the Mossad and the IDF to bring down the Iranian regime, and that he regards the election as the mandate to do it. The generals around him have warned the timing risks a miscalculation, and the opposition warns the threat is being used to win an election.
For Netanyahu, the week ahead is about survival: a prime minister who has led Israel through the worst security failure in generations, asking voters to trust him with the next war. For Eisenkot, it is about proving that a challenger who has never held elected office can dislodge the longest-serving leader in the country’s history. For Trump, it is about whether his endorsement delivers an ally in Jerusalem, or leaves him dealing with a successor who has already promised to work with him anyway. The ballots on Tuesday will be the first verdict; the decision on Iran, most likely, will be the second.
Source: Reuters