Donald Trump has arrived in Jerusalem with a suitcase of Netanyahu bumper stickers and announced he will personally knock on the door of every household in Israel before the October 27 parliamentary election, converting a social-media endorsement into a one-man ground campaign.
«I have looked at the map and I have looked at the doors, and I am going to knock on all of them,» the US president told reporters at Ben Gurion Airport, where he was met by a brass band and a folding table stacked with campaign hats. «Bibi is a great partner for peace, and I am not going to let a single Israeli voter go to the polls without hearing that from me in person.»
By mid-afternoon the president had knocked on the doors of an apartment block in central Jerusalem, handed out leaflets bearing his own signature and a photograph of the two leaders shaking hands, and accepted a glass of tea from a resident who said she had already voted by mail. Aides said the tour would continue through the Negev and the Galilee, with a stop in every town that has at least one street.
The operation has required the construction of a mobile stage that folds out of a truck, a fleet of golf carts painted in campaign colors, and a timetable that gives the president four minutes per doorstep. Israeli police have been reassigned to escort the convoy, and the national postal service has been asked to hold all non-campaign mail until the tour is finished.
«If Israel has the wrong leader — and that would be anyone other than Bibi — America will have to do this work itself, and I am not inclined to do that,» Trump said, before climbing into a golf cart and driving toward the next block of apartments.