Haim Saban Calls Donald Trump a ‘Clown’ — and Dangerous for Israel
Haim Saban interviews President Obama at the Saban Forum on Middle East policy. Image by Getty Images
American-Israel businessman and Hillary Clinton supporter Haim Saban ripped into Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, saying he would be “dangerous for the world” and thus to Israel as well.
Asked by Channel 2 TV about the American presidential campaign, Saban said the elections have become a “circus” with Trump acting as the “clown.”
Trump holds up a child he pulled from the crowd as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally in New Orleans, March 4, 2016.
“The Republican are in a janana,” he said, using a Hebrew slang word, originally from Arabic, meaning craziness. “They don’t understand what is happening to them, and they woke up to it too late.
“We now see a very serious campaign underway to stop the tsunami called Donald Trump. Will it succeed? Nobody knows.”
When asked if Trump is dangerous for Israel, Saban said that “Trump is dangerous to the world, and as Israel is part of the world he is dangerous to Israel.”
Saban said that unlike Clinton, Trump was “unpredictable.”
“It’s hard to know what’s in his mind. One day he’ll give an interview to an Israeli newspaper and say ‘you’ve never had a friend in the White House the way you will when I will be president.’ The next day they ask him about the Middle East and he says, ‘I’m neutral. I’m the UN. I won’t involve myself, you just don’t know with him, every day it’s something else.’
“So I can’t really say if he’s good or bad for Israel, I can only say it’s unknown.”
When asked about Clinton, Saban said that “if you believe in the two-states for two peoples, Hillary Clinton will be excellent for Israel, the Mideast, the world and the U.S. [But not] if you don’t believe in the two-state solution… because that’s what she believes.”
Asked if Clinton’s position could put her at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saban said, “I think she’ll get along with the prime minister in the most effective manner imaginable … because I take him at his word and he has said – two-states for two peoples.”
“How will that work out in reality? He has his opinions, she has her opinions, they’ll sit at the table, and I hope there won’t be a gap between them. But I don’t think there’s a danger of tension between them.”
Saban, among Clinton’s closest confidants, has described himself in the past as a “one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel,” has been a major donor to political campaigns of both Clinton and her husband, reportedly giving them more than $30 million over the years, according to JTA.
Saban joined Republican mega-donor and Netanyahu-backer Sheldon Adelson for a short-lived partnership to fight the boycott movement, but left only months after the two began raising funds for the program, which was supposed to target anti-Israel activities on campus.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
