Trump out of the equation… candidates in Israel ignore Washington

An article by journalist Shlomo Shamir in the Israeli newspaper Maariv highlights the absence of two issues from the new Knesset election campaign: Israel's relationship with the Jewish community in New York, and the future of official relations with Washington and the White House with about two years remaining in US President Donald Trump's term. The writer criticised prominent candidates including Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir for showing no interest in New York's Jewish community of more than 1.5 million people, noting that former prime ministers such as Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir used to travel to the United States and meet community leaders.