One under-appreciated thing about Donald Trump is that he knows how to help a friend. Rarely in the annals of modern democracy has a US president done so much to assist a foreign leader to be re-elected. It is even harder to find an instance where it has made the difference between defeat and victory. Benjamin Netanyahu almost certainly owes his re-election to Mr Trump. Just 24 hours before Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, Mr Trump declared Iran’s revolutionary guards to be a terrorist organisation. In the previous weeks, he recognised Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and defied convention not to meddle in elections by sending his secretary of state on a supportive trip to Israel ahead of the poll. That is on top of Mr Trump’s shift last year of the US embassy to Jerusalem.
人们低估了唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的一点，即他知道如何帮助朋友。在现代民主史册上，很少有哪位美国总统为帮助外国领导人连任付出过这么多努力。要找到这种努力决定胜败的例子就更难了。几乎可以肯定，本雅明•内塔尼亚胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)的成功连任要归功于特朗普。就在以色列人上周二前往投票站的24小时前，特朗普宣布伊朗革命卫队为恐怖组织。在此前几周里，他承认了以色列对戈兰高地(Golan Heights)的主权，并无视不干预选举的惯例，在以色列大选前派国务卿前往以色列给予支持。除了这一切之外，去年特朗普还将美国驻以色列大使馆迁往耶路撒冷。