Trump must realise forever war is Netanyahu and Putin's only option

Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin enjoyed a friendly phone chat earlier this month, marking the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat.

- Simon Tisdall

The Israeli and Russian leaders have much in common. Both claim to be still heroically battling Nazis, in Gaza and Ukraine respectively. This fiction is used to justify the murder of civilians, spiralling troop casualties and huge economic and reputational costs. Maybe it helps them sleep at night.

Bibi and Vlad: the world's most wanted men - and possibly the most despised.

Overseeing the random killing and traumatising of thousands of children is one of many shared behaviours. These two authoritarian "strongmen" have each plunged their countries into global pariahdom and moral purdah. Conflict keeps them in power. They milk patriotic sentiment to cow domestic opponents and vilify foreign critics as antisemites, terrorist sympathisers or Russophobes. They wage war because they fear peace. Both are on the run from international justice, with warrants issued for their arrest for heinous crimes.

Netanyahu and his far-right cronies deny Palestinians the right to an independent state. Likewise, Putin rejects the reality of Ukraine as a sovereign country. Both project messianic, expansionist visions - of a "greater Israel" and a revived Soviet imperium. Underpinning such views is a racially supremacist, ultra-nationalist mindset.

European leaders predict Putin, if unpunished, will eventually turn his guns on them. Netanyahu has already expanded the Gaza war to Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. Latest US intelligence reports suggest he is preparing to attack Iran, hoping to scupper nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.