Israel PM 'boasts' of Trump's endorsement, urges voters to listen

From Europe and America, let's now head to Israel. In just over a week, millions of Israelis will cast their ballot in a parliamentary election. The stakes are as high as they can be with questions over Israel's open war fronts, scrutiny on October 7th security failure, and the clouds that loom large over Benjamin Netanyahu's political future. Well, the incumbent prime minister is currently riding high on an endorsement from his closest ally, Donald Trump. Bibi has leveraged that backing to reach out to undecided voters in Israel. This is in a video message Netanyahu tried to woo Israeli voters who are yet to make a decision and urged them to pay heed to Trump's words about the Israeli leader. Netanyahu said that together the two leaders can quote-unquote achieve remarkable things. He shoulders most of his appeal on an existential threat to Israel in an effort to make the war against Iran a bigger deciding factor than other issues at hand. and I say to you citizens of Israel this is the most important consideration there are other important issues of course but this is about our very existence this is about safeguarding the eternity of Israel that is what is at stake in these elections and President Trump says I will do it but he also says that it can only be done if the two of us do it together but can Trump's endorsement and push for Israel security do the job in convincing voters especially after the security failure of October 7th, three years ago. The question remains a key factor as Israelis are divided over the U.S. president backing Netanyahu. Kerowitz, Trump has to say the issues here are more internal and he doesn't understand them and most Americans don't understand them. Most Americans hate Netanyahu for reasons that are completely different from why Israelis don't like Netanyahu and Americans have no idea what's going on here really internally. I think Donald Trump should not interfere in the issue of the elections. We should at least have one thing that is our and ours alone. I know we are connected to the United States and that we are simply under their wing since he is our prime minister. I think he should grant the people the ability to choose. And I think this is an intimate internal issue, something that concerns Israel alone. Now, it's not just an undecided voter base of Israel which can play a pivotal role in the election mandate later this month. There are the Arab voters of the country who are also important in deciding which way this election goes. This is a fact that even the small but significant Arab parties of the country know. Leaders such as those of the Ram Party eye a change of guard, citing the issues that the country's most right-wing government has brought in its tenure. We want to replace the right-wing government in every sense of the word to end the wars and these policies, to stop the expansion of settlements and to address the failure to stop settler attacks. We also want a government that implements shared security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis. The smaller parties are aware of their importance. All polls so far have shown a very narrow contest between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu alliances. but neither are forecasted to meet the halfway mark to form the government. Arab parties are expected to play a key role in determining which bloc gets the majority in the Knesset. Israel goes to polls on October 27th. This is the first election since the Hamas attack in 2023 and Israel's subsequent blanket attacks that followed on Gaza. Former IDF general Gadi Eisenkot has risen in popularity, But Netanyahu is trying to fight it back with a newly proposed security doctrine, which of these promises and issues stand out for the voters as they head to the ballot soon. That is the big question.