Last week, the Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte—known for his bloody war on his country’s drug traffickers and drug addicts as well as his outrageous statements encouraging violence and even seeming to praise Hitler—made a state visit to Israel, where he was warmly received by Benjamin Netanyahu. Easy as it is to criticize the prime minister for cultivating relations with such unpleasant characters, writes Daniel Gordis, the truth is that he has a sound strategic rationale for doing so:
Duterte had reasons for wanting to visit Israel. Tens of thousands of Filipinos are employed in Israel, many of them as caretakers for Israel’s elderly. So common is the phenomenon that the term filipinit has come to mean female caregiver regardless of the caregiver’s country of origin. Sentences such as “my mother’s filipinit is from Sri Lanka” are common. . . . Duterte promised to meet with some of these foreign workers and to discuss their conditions of employment. But he was obviously much more interested in purchasing Israeli arms. . . .
Duterte is but one of several strongmen to whom Netanyahu has reached out of late. The prime minister has met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, to name but a few. Duterte is thus merely the latest in a string of seemingly strange relationships.
Netanyahu is hardly oblivious of the critique these visits have engendered, but he is also a master strategist. One of his key priorities is to ensure that Israel is not alone in the international arena. In the United Nations General Assembly, the Philippines (like Azerbaijan) has the same vote as do Germany or France. Smaller countries are also more likely to be sensitive to Netanyahu’s pressure to move their embassies to Jerusalem (though Paraguay’s agreement to do so backfired on him this week).
Israelis may grimace at Duterte’s presence in Israel, but they are all-too-accustomed to feeling internationally isolated. They take comfort in their prime minister building bridges to countries around the globe. [That’s one reason that], under Netanyahu, Israelis simply feel safer.
Read more on Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-07/when-netanyahu-met-duterte-israel-s-leader-could-take-the-hit