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JERUSALEM, Israel – Global reaction to the FBI’s raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was mostly muted on Tuesday, with even his close allies and supporters in Israel refraining from commenting on the events that have created controversy in the U.S.
“A lot of people here [in Israel] are aware of what is going on, but it’s not causing the kind of outcry that you see in the U.S. at the moment and that is understandable,” said Marc Zell, an international lawyer, who serves as the Chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel and vice president of Republicans Overseas International.
He said that “as a general rule, Israelis don’t know much about American politics, and they are distracted by their own issues.” Zell highlighted the hostilities this past weekend between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the threat from Iran and upcoming national elections, also in November.
TRUMP SAYS MAR-A-LAGO HOME IN FLORIDA ‘UNDER SEIGE’ BY FBI AGENTS
President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, at the White House in Washington.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Zell, who condemned the FBI raid in a tweet, said, however, that parallels could definitely be drawn between Trump and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Trump and Netanyahu are often compared,” he said. “Both are very outspoken leaders, very strong-willed leaders, which is something many Israelis admire and by the same token, many Israelis despise, both these people tend to bring up intense reactions from their supporters and their enemies.”
Dr. Gadi Taub, a professor of U.S. history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital, that the similarities of the two leaders and the criminal investigations both face now, after being ousted from power, are even closer.
“I think the weaponization of state agencies in both countries is fairly clear,” said Taub. “I think we can’t interpret all this fully unless we understand that at the center of all this is an alliance between left-wing media and state agencies.”
Aside from Zell, Taub and a handful of others, there was mostly silence about the raid, which Trump supporters said was unprecedented and undermined public confidence in the U.S. justice system.
In other countries too, political leaders, pundits and the media refrained from commenting or criticizing the Biden administration or the U.S. authorities for the raid.
“Russian media so far has refrained from overtly attacking the Biden administration’s Justice Department or directly supporting former President Trump,” said Rebekah Koffler, president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, a former DIA intelligence officer and the author of “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America.”
“The coverage of the FBI’s raid on President Trump’s estate is largely neutral, as Russian media are simply reporting the news coming out of Western outlets,” she said.
Koffler noted, “However, the focus of the reporting is on criticisms by GOP officials that criticize the FBI for targeting President Biden’s political opponent and potential future presidential candidate. The most prominent theme is that 100 FBI agents descended on Trump’s home in Florida.”
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In the U.K., the picture was similar, with most media outlets picking up reporting from the U.S., although the left-wing newspaper The Guardian ran an opinion piece saying the “development has hit Trump and his family hard. Or opportunely, depending on how you look at it.”