Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes interviewed Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after billionaire Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Netanyahu tells Stahl he knows Trump “very well” and thinks Trump’s “attitude, his support for Israel, is very clear. He feels very warmly about the Jewish state, about the Jewish people and about Jewish people. There’s no question about that.”
Netanyahu places Trump in an unusual position after one of the most ferocious election campaigns in US history. Some Trump supporters, especially many considered part of the so-called alt-right, have been accused of spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric throughout his campaign. Just days before the election, the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Trump campaign for an ad that “evoked stereotypes historically used by anti-Semites.” But as Chemi Shalev of Haaretz wrote two days prior to the election: “Trump Shows How Right-wingers Can Love Israel and Hate the Jews.” The subtitle of the article is: “Some American right-wingers despise Jewish liberals with same venom that Israeli right detests Jewish leftists.” 60 Minutes airs Sundays at 7pm on CBS.
