Why is Mike Pompeo risking a one-day trip to Israel amid the pandemic? - The National
▻https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/why-is-mike-pompeo-risking-a-one-day-trip-to-israel-amid-the-pandemic-1.
▻https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.1018318:1589283600/image.jpg?f=16x9&q=0.6&w=1200&$p$f$q$w=70c86c9
Now with a parliamentary majority, Mr Netanyahu is keen to forge ahead with his long-delayed political priorities while Donald Trump is still in the White House and offering a near-blank cheque.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, wants Israel in lockstep with his own priorities as he takes on the presumed Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in November’s presidential election.
With his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic coming in for increasingly tough criticism, Mr Trump will need all his electoral bases shored up. Keeping Mr Netanyahu happy will be key to bringing out the fervently pro-Israel, Christian evangelical vote that helped him win in 2016.
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Fault lines with Washington could quickly open over Syria, where Russia is angling to turn Bashar Al Assad’s government into a client state, guiding and controlling economic and military reconstruction.
Moscow wants Iran out of Syria nearly as badly as Israel and the US, and has been turning a blind eye to Israel’s attacks. For that reason, a Russian-controlled Syria may prove the least of all bad options for Israel.
For the US, on the other hand, it would allow Mr Putin an escape hatch from the box into which Washington has been progressively corralling Russia over the past 30 years. Should Moscow make a success of rebuilding Syria, its influence might grow in the region’s other war-ravaged areas – from Iraq to Libya and Yemen.
