Trump should stop calling Bibi a ‘wartime prime minister’

Just the other day, President Donald Trump referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “wartime prime minister.” In fact, President Trump has been referring to Netanyahu that way for quite a while now. Sometimes he even lets everyone know that he considers Bibi a “war hero” and a “great wartime prime minister.” The more I hear Trump use such labels, the more bothered I become.

Ahhh, the luxury of being an American president is the luxury of having the American thought process! Here in the United States, we have the freedom to think of our presidents in categories — peacetime versus wartime leaders. We take our hats off to the great peacetime president Thomas Jefferson for avoiding involvement in the Napoleonic Wars and expanding our nation through the Louisiana Purchase, and we salute great wartime presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt for their perseverance and successes.

But Israel has no such luxury. Israelis do not know how to differentiate between “wartime” prime ministers and “peacetime” prime ministers because Israel, through no fault of its own, has never truly known peacetime. From the moment of her founding in May 1948 — when she was attacked by multiple Arab armies — Israel has existed in a perpetual state of war on multiple fronts against enemy nations and terrorist organizations. Can any other sovereign country claim the same?

So, Mr. President, please stop calling Bibi a “wartime prime minister,” or even a “great wartime prime minister.” If you really want to compliment him and tell the full story, perhaps you should publicly say the following:

“Thanks to the continued ambivalence and hostility toward modern Israel by much of the Muslim world since its inception, every Israeli prime minister has been forced to become a wartime prime minister in order to ensure the survival of the nation and its citizens — among whom Bibi stands out as one of the most proficient.”