by Alex Traiman
The Hostage Forum movement wanted to be able to say, over and over again, that Netanyahu failed to "bring them home." Once it became clear that the hostages were coming home, the Forum needed someone else to credit with the stunning achievement.
On Saturday night, the crowd at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square cheered U.S. President Donald Trump for his role in securing the return of the hostages, but jeered when Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, publicly thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Witkoff appeared to be surprised by the reaction.
“Let me just finish my thought. Guys, lemme just finish my thought,” he pleaded.
In his oft-interrupted-with-boos statement, a stunned Witkoff refused to back down. “I was in the trenches with the prime minister. Believe me, he was very important here,” he said.
“The prime minister and his staff, [Strategic Affairs Minister] Ron Dermer included, have both sacrificed so much for this country and devoted their lives to the service of Israel. Their dedication to the history and destiny of this nation stands out tonight,” he added.
“They’ve given everything—their time, their energy and their hearts—to building a safer and stronger future for the Jewish people. Their commitment to this country has never wavered and it never will. We thank you. The president thanks you. Thank you,” he concluded.
Witkoff and his fellow presidential envoy, Jared Kushner, who also addressed the forum, should not have been the least bit surprised by the anti-Netanyahu boo birds.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which organizes the weekly rallies at that very venue, is run by the same heads of the anti-government campaigns that have ravaged Israel since Netanyahu ran for re-election in November 2022.
These campaigns have exchanged one campaign slogan for another, castigating Netanyahu as a “Crime Minister” when Israel’s state prosecution was leaking contents of criminal investigations against Netanyahu to the press during consecutive inconclusive elections cycles.
Yet, as Netanyahu finally formed a strong right-wing coalition to end the elections standoff, and as the prosecution proved to be generating more headlines than substance, the movement pivoted to protesting Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms. During the anti-reform protests in the weeks leading up to Oct. 7, 2023, the movement threatened to tear Israel apart, suggesting the protests would erupt into civil war.
With the horrific Hamas massacre that saw 1,200 murdered, thousands injured and 255 living and dead taken hostage, the protest group quickly changed tactics, rallying behind the cause of the hostages. The movement did so for two key reasons: First, because they needed to restore some semblance of public trust after their destructive behavior before Oct. 7; and secondly, because they hedged that Netanyahu would never succeed in returning the hostages.
In fact, the campaign slogan “Bring them home” was intentionally created to put the burden of securing the hostages’ release on the government rather than on Hamas, the terror organization that took them and held them in deep underground tunnels. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum movement wanted to be able to say, over and over again, that Netanyahu had failed to “bring them home.”
Of course, once it became clear that the hostages were indeed coming home, the Forum needed to find someone else to credit with the stunning achievement. Netanyahu, and his key associate, Dermer, can never receive any credit from the Forum for negotiating any of the deals to get the hostages free, because the Forum was set up specifically to oppose Netanyahu’s continued leadership.
For those who believe that the protest movement will end once the hostages are back on Israeli soil, guess again. The slogans will change, likely calling for “elections now” or some other focus-tested message the movement hopes will bring thousands out to weekly protests. New, expensive and well-funded signage will appear across the country signaling the movements next call to protest.
Enter the Hostage Forum’s hero: Donald Trump.
Trump deserves all the credit in the world for finally pushing Qatar, Turkey, Egypt and the rest of the Arab world to put pressure on Hamas to release the all of the remaining hostages. And the Forum, and the families who visited a gracious president many times in the White House, are correct to praise him.
But, it should be made clear that several key organizers of the rally who were shouting “Thank you, Trump” on Saturday night have been castigating him as a “Nazi” and “threat to democracy” since his first presidential run in 2015.
Consider Ronen Tzur, who founded the Forum on Oct. 7, 2023.
On Aug. 17, 2017, Tzur—who later served as a political adviser to opposition politician Benny Gantz—tweeted: “Barack Hussein Obama is gone and Donald Adolf Trump has arrived. I’m dying to see who follows him.”
Tzur was later replaced as head of the Forum by Lior Chorev, another top left-wing political consultant. Chorev’s X feed bio says that in addition to his role as “chief strategist-campaign manager for the Hostages Family Forum,” he is an “expert in the field of public perception and influence.” Chorev has expressed similar sentiments regarding Trump (and his children), calling him an American version of Netanyahu and his family.
On Jan. 7, 2021, Chorev tweeted: “’This isn’t the Republican Party; this is the Trump Party,’ screamed Donald’s son. And in my mind’s eye I saw [an obscene expression the Israeli left uses to mention Netanyahu’s son Yair Netanyahu].”
On Oct. 16, 2022, Chorev tweeted: “Think of the fact that everything that came out today about Trump in the Congress [from the Jan. 6 Committee] and the real threat he poses to the well-being and security of the United States has been known about Bibi for years.”
At a demonstration in Tel Aviv in March 2023 that gathered many of the same anti-Netanyahu political activists as Saturday night’s rally did, protest organizers graphically merged their campaign against Netanyahu with the American left’s campaign against Trump.
The crowd called for the overthrow of the Netanyahu government under a massive banner that portrayed him, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in orange prison jumpsuits and called for them to be arrested.
Yair Golan, the head of the far-left “Democrats Party,” who has repeatedly praised Trump in recent days, has a long history of statements attacking the president as a threat to democracy and to all the values of good people.
On Nov. 7, 2020, Golan tweeted: “’I will be the ally of the light, not of the darkness’—that’s what Biden said a few weeks ago. The time has come for Israel to come out of the darkness into the light, and the light doesn’t shine from the right. If we want to live, we must cling to the values of progress, of mutual responsibility, of self-confidence and hope. The era of dread is over. The era of hope has come; the time has come for renewal and building.”
His statement was written over a red-and-white banner that read, “Liar, liar, you are fired!”
In an anti-Trump conference at UCLA organized by the far-left Haaretz newspaper ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, Golan said, “Donald Trump represents something which is very negative to all democracies on Earth,” adding that Trump threatens “the most valuable and the most precious values.”
The Forum organizers routinely compared Trump and Netanyahu to one another. And certainly, the two leaders have been the targets of similar attacks from weaponized prosecutions, deep states and media that all work toward their respective ousters.
While the Forum rally organizers suddenly changed their stripes regarding Trump, there is zero chance that they can credit Netanyahu, for taking the steps necessary to bring all of the hostages home or for any of the other dramatic war gains, including the dismantling of Hezbollah to Israel’s north as well as Iran’s nuclear program.
Yet, in the latest polls, Netanyahu’s approval rating is higher than that of all of his possible rivals combined. The Likud, which he heads, is polling more than double the seats of its closest rival, (34-16), and Netanyahu’s coalition has retained its solid 64-seat majority in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset.
It is hopeful that Witkoff and Kushner will recognize that the crowds at Hostages Square represent the views of an extremely vocal minority. They are now embracing Trump, despite their longstanding hatred for him, at least in part, in the hopes of driving a wedge between him and Netanyahu.
Alex Traiman is the CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief of the Jewish News Syndicate
(JNS) and host of “Jerusalem Minute.” A seasoned Israeli journalist,
documentary filmmaker and startup consultant, he is an expert on Israeli
politics and U.S.-Israel relations. He has interviewed top political
figures, including Israeli leaders, U.S. senators and national security
officials with insights featured on major networks like BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, Fox and Newsmax. A former NCAA champion fencer and Yeshiva University Sports Hall of Fame member, he made aliyah in 2004, and lives in Jerusalem with his wife and five children.
Source: https://www.jns.org/witkoff-blindsided-by-netanyahu-opponents-turned-trump-supporters-during-tel-aviv-speech/
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