"Israel is an independent state": When the US president intervened against Netanyahu

The article reviews the history of US presidential interventions in Israeli elections, against the backdrop of Donald Trump's explicit support for Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the 2026 elections. It describes cases from 1992 (George H.W. Bush and Yitzhak Shamir), 1996 (Bill Clinton and Shimon Peres), 1999 (Clinton and Ehud Barak), and 2015 (Barack Obama and Netanyahu).

The article reviews the history of US presidential interventions in Israeli elections, against the backdrop of Donald Trump's explicit support for Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the 2026 elections. Trump declared full support for Netanyahu, and Netanyahu thanked him. The article opens with a quote from Netanyahu from 1996, in which he attacked Bill Clinton for trying to help Shimon Peres. It then describes historical cases: the confrontation between George H.W. Bush and Yitzhak Shamir in 1992 over loan guarantees and settlement construction; Clinton's open support for Peres in 1996, including his later admission that he tried to help him; assistance from Clinton's advisers to Ehud Barak in 1999; and the tension between Netanyahu and Barack Obama in 2015 over the Iran nuclear deal. The article emphasizes that American intervention in Israeli elections is not a new phenomenon.