Netanyahu's rivals liken him to Trump as world reels from Capitol riots

On Jan. 8, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak posted a photo of a massive billboard from a previous Israeli election campaign showing a beaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing alongside a broadly smiling US President Donald Trump. Next to the photo Barak tweeted, “The conmen’s league. Political Siamese twins. Both narcissists, both claiming to have been framed, both serial liars contemptuous of their followers, inciting against the legal system. Both fraudsters insanely self-centered and willing to assassinate democracy. The Americans have already disposed of theirs, at a heavy cost. It is now our turn.”

In a Haaretz article run the same day, Barak urged President Reuven Rivlin to declare that Netanyahu cannot serve as prime minister given his indictment and ongoing trial on a charge of bribery, even though the law does not forbid him from running for office. Barak said the president must make the pronouncement before the Feb. 4 deadline for submitting the parties’ candidate lists for the March 23 elections “so that those compiling the lists take it into account and citizens are aware of it before they head for the ballot box.”

Barak was not the only one to draw a parallel between Netanyahu and his supporters and the bloody mob attack on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters. Netanyahu’s political opponents and opinion-shapers on social media have sought to adapt the incredibly unsettling events in the US capital to the political situation and division in Israel and to portray Netanyahu as Trump's twin.

Netanyahu condemned the ransacking of the Capitol during a Jan. 7 meeting with visiting US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “American democracy has always inspired me. Lawlessness and violence are the opposite of the values we know Americans and Israelis cherish. The rampage at the Capitol yesterday was a disgraceful act that must be vigorously condemned,” he said.