Given the several really historic pro-Israel actions he took in his first term, it is hard to believe that President Trump’s sudden negativism about Israel was foundational. That is, it is the result of some epiphany he experienced that he was wrong in his heretofore overwhelming support for the Jewish state in relation to the Palestinians, Iran and its proxies. The contrast would be too stark.
In context, it therefore seems far more likely that he was and is trying to head off – before it assumed critical mass – what he feared would be the Arab world’s becoming an obstacle to the success of his America First agenda and plans to remake the Middle East in America’s image. But that business model does not bode well for both Israel and the United States. It does, however, empower those who would do harm to both.
Certainly, in his first term, Trump demonstrated the firmest of commitments to Israel.
He moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as Israel had long requested and other presidents had promised to do, but never followed through. He withdrew the U.S. from the Obama Iran nuclear deal as Israel urged. He brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states which ultimately formed the Abraham Accords. He recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel as Israel had asked.
And in the early days of his second term, Trump brokered a deal for the release of Israeli hostages from Gaza without requiring Israel to commit to end the war there as Hamas had requested. He then famously proposed that the U.S. would take over Gaza and empty it of Palestinians. But, as catalogued by the Times of Israel, things abruptly started to change.
Reports soon emerged of a U.S. negotiator having entered into direct talks with Hamas. The talks quickly ended after they went nowhere, although they were a definite no-no at the time.
A month later, Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly went to the White House in a bid to remove tariffs on Israeli imports, but President Trump unceremoniously announced they would remain in place for the time being.
The president also then announced, to Netanyahu’s apparent shock, that the U.S. would be conducting negotiations with Iran without Israel’s participation. Reports from the negotiations soon indicated that they may result in something similar to the much-criticized Obama nuclear deal with Iran.
Soon thereafter, the White House announced that President Trump would be going on his first foreign trip where he will meet with Arab leaders – but not Israeli ones. It was also disclosed that he had no present plans to visit Israel.
Then, in early May, Trump announced that the U.S. and the Houthi terror group in Yemen had reached a truce without requiring the Houthis to stop attacking Israel, after which a surprised Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to “defend ourselves alone.”
Trump has also reportedly pressured Israel to let aid into Gaza despite Hamas’s regular stealing of much of it and empowering Israel’s sworn enemy.
Last week, Reuters reported that Trump was no longer demanding that Saudi Arabia recognize Israel as a condition for a broader pact with the U.S.
And on this past Monday came the news that the U.S. secured the release of Edan Alexander – an American Israeli dual citizen taken hostage by Hamas on Oct.7 – through direct negotiations between the U.S. and Hamas, with only minimal Israeli involvement.
So we rather think that the president’s new unfavorable stance towards Israel was likely fueled by a fear that an alienated Arab world would come to thwart his ability to proceed, full bore, to follow through on his America First agenda in the Middle East – think, expansion of the Abraham Accords – and not any animus towards Israel or its prime minister, per se, as some are suggesting.
Nor is this necessarily only a matter of Trumpian altruism. In the light of his signature, extravagant public statements, one has to assume that he is also anxious about moving forward on his oft-expressed desire for the Nobel Peace Prize and to being heralded as the “statesman no one has ever seen the likes of before,” to coin a phrase.
Unfortunately, whatever his motivation, the bottom line is the same. Trump is surely acting as if he is all in on the notion that Israel has to be deemed the problem, not those who make unreasonable demands that Israel concede on core issues.
And in this, Trump is seemingly also hearkening to the Arab world’s growing insistence that the price for their cooperation is, among other things, his delivering Israel on such issues as a Palestinian state and a prompt, negotiated end to the war in Gaza – not the unconditional surrender or elimination of Hamas favored by Israel.
And that does not augur well.
How far will President Trump be willing to go at Israel’s expense in order to mollify the Arabs and preserve his vision for a new Middle East?
We will soon find out.
