Comparing the Responses of Trump and Netanyahu to the Coronavirus Outbreak

President Donald Trump, right, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, March 5, 2018. (Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have much in common when it comes to policy and style.

They stand together in recommending tough action to contain Iran, and are comfortable dealing with autocracies (Saudi Arabia) and increasingly nationalist democracies (Hungary, India). Netanyahu has fervently embraced idioms identified with Trump, like “fake news” and “deep state.”

Butwhen it comes to how they are both handling the coronavirus, it’s night andday.

Netanyahu’spublic statements have been clear and packed with detail.Trump’s press conferences have been wild rides,with the president often seeming like he and the government he leads are ondifferent pages.

“It’s something we have tremendous control of,” Trump said of the virus on Sunday, Mar. 15. A few minutes later, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said, “The worst is yet ahead for us.”

Netanyahu’sgovernment launched containment measures in the last week of February, put intoplace strict restrictions on public gatherings and shut down schools. The primeminister has been unstinting and even prescient in describing the dimensions ofthe crisis.

“I say ‘crisis’ but it must be understood that we are in the midst of a global pandemic,” Netanyahu said in remarks Mar. 4 after meeting with top emergency service officials. “They do not call it this but this is the truth and it needs to be said. It could be that it is among the most dangerous of such pandemics in the past 100 years.”

A week later, on Mar. 11, the World Health Organization made its official determination: the virus is a pandemic.

Trump, who did not declare a national emergency until last Friday, Mar. 13, has contradicted top U.S. officials and understated the dimensions of the threat. On Mar. 4, as Netanyahu was calling the virus a pandemic, Trump was telling Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel, “Now, and this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this. Because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly.”

The president suggested people with the virus should continue working. Netanyahu has warned Israelis to restrain their famous tendencies to express affection.

“Welove to embrace. We love to shake hands,” he said lastweek. “We love to kiss. No more.”

AtNetanyahu’s appearances, his top officials maintain a healthy social distancefrom one another.

In contrast, at the rollout last Friday, Mar. 13, of the national emergency declaration, Trump kept shaking hands with the captains of industry he had assembled and who were standing shoulder to shoulder — a no-no for anyone exposed to the virus, as Trump has been in his meetings with foreign dignitaries.

Howdid two peas break out of their cozy pod in such drastically divergent ways?

Trump has abigger headache

“Ihave many criticisms of Trump’s handling before and during the crisis, but someof the elements are due to Israel’s size and location,” said Daniel Shapiro,the U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration who has endorsedformer Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential run.

DavidMakovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a thinktank with close ties to the Israeli and U.S. governments, pointed out thatIsrael has only one major port of entry, Ben Gurion International Airport.Additionally, Israel has long experience shutting out its neighbors — it’s in awar zone.

“To gain control of that airport ismore manageable — we have airports and [open] borders all over,” Makovsky said.

Anotherfactor is the utility of Israel’s centralized bureaucracy in a crisis, asopposed to the devolved federal system in the United States, which relies moreon local and state authorities for emergency services.

Netanyahualso leads a population that through decades of war has become accustomed totradeoffs between civil liberties and security. A similar tension has been inplay in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, butIsraelis are more habituated to making the sacrifice, Makovsky said.

“Thisis not unprecedented for Israelis,” he said. “They’re used to ceding to thestate emergency powers.”

The “DeepState” isn’t always so bad

Netanyahuand Trump have both reviled what they depict as entrenched bureaucracies benton frustrating their agendas and launching unmerited investigations.

Trump,a true outsider when he won the presidency, may genuinely fear the “deep state”he imagines, but Netanyahu, a longtime diplomat who has spent more years of hisadulthood on the government payroll than off it, knows how to use thebureaucracy.

“Netanyahuis experienced in the workings of government, he is strategic in understandinghow to use resources, apply them across a policy and to communicate to thepublic,” Shapiro said. “You see in this case the experience, the knowledge andthe appreciation of the mechanics of government he runs. That’s exactly theopposite of how Trump behaves. Trump has been dismissive of expertise in hisgovernment, he has sought to downplay the crisis when it needed strongcoordinated leadership.”

It’s acultural difference, too

Netanyahuhas at least since his enlistment in the Israeli army been part of a nationalculture that mandates teamwork. Trump, who avoided the draft, has for hisentire adult life been calling the shots as a boss in a society that lionizesindividualism and private enterprise.

Netanyahuloves telling stories about his time with a top commando unit, with anemphasis on the camaraderie and team building he enjoyed. Trump’s stories aspresident often involve the praise he’s received from people who call him“sir.”

Netanyahu’sbusiness training led to a career as a consultant — which requires listeningand recommendations. Trump expects to be listened to and has little time forcounsel other than his own.

Netanyahuhas fashioned a political brand around the pitch that he is the only leader whocan keep Israel safe in a dangerous neighborhood —  a proposition thatassumes threats will arrive. And in dealing with them, Netanyahu insists a disciplinedcommunal response is needed.

“I would like to express appreciation for the citizens of Israel for their exceptional conduct, which is helping us to slow the pace of the spreading,” he said on Sunday, Mar. 15,at the outset of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Trumpon the other hand, promised to make America great again, insisting thatAmerican carnage would make way for beautiful — and that the way to get there,as he famously put it on the night he was nominated in 2016, is “I alone can doit.”

“It’s two different systems,” Shapiro said, “one where people learn teamwork early on, crisis response early on, where people learn to be creative and think outside the box when faced with real-time challenges, sometimes with life and death consequences.”

Ron Kampeas writes for the JTA global Jewish news source.

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