Trump's Superficial 'Criticisms' of Israel

Trump has nothing critical to say about how the Israeli government has waged the war itself.

The coverage of Trump’s position on the war in Gaza has been remarkably bad. This is from Politico earlier today:

For the second time in two weeks, Donald Trump on Thursday unloaded on Israel.

The former president has long cast himself as a stalwart defender of Israel. But on Thursday, he said Israel was “losing the PR war” in its handling of the war in Gaza because of its posts to social media showing images of destruction.

It is extremely misleading to say that Trump was “unloading” on Israel when he was mostly commenting on how he thinks their government is making mistakes in presenting the war in the media. Trump is obsessed with the appearance of things and how things play on television, so his focus is on the PR side of the conflict. What concerns him here is not that the Israeli government has killed tens of thousands of civilians and has created a famine that threatens hundreds of thousands more, but that they release images of attacks that hurt their cause politically.

Trump doesn’t object to Israeli tactics or goals. The only thing he finds fault with is what they are showing to the rest of the world.