What
Donald Trump did this week should terrify Benjamin Netanyahu. This is why
Jonathan
Freedland
The
president’s Middle East tour made one thing clear – he will betray his one-time
ally in a heartbeat. He is already doing it
Fri 16 May
2025 17.44 CEST
It’s come to
something when the Palestinians’ best hope for relief rests on a man who dreams
of emptying Gaza of its people and turning the place into a beach resort. And
yet the clearest, and perhaps only, way out of the current agony lies with
Donald Trump – and his growing impatience with an ever-more isolated Israel.
If this were
any of Trump’s predecessors, you would be hailing the past week as confirmation
of a radical, even epochal shift in US foreign policy. But because it’s Trump,
you can’t be sure it’s not a passing whim that will be undone in another
equally drastic shift a matter of weeks, or even hours, from now.
Still, taken
at face value, Trump’s tour of the past several days signifies a sharply
different approach to the Middle East and especially to the country that, for
decades, Washington saw as its chief ally in the region. The most basic fact is
also the most telling: the US president did not even visit Israel.
That could
have been explained away but for what Trump said and did on his travels. In
Saudi Arabia, he did not merely greet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warmly,
he gushed with adoration. “I like you too much,” he said to Prince Mohammed,
asking the de-facto ruler once snubbed by Washington for his reliance on the
bone saw if he ever found time to sleep, given how energetically he had
transformed his kingdom.
The two men
agreed a deal that will see Saudi Arabia acquire $142bn of US arms. Until this
week, a cornerstone of the US-Israel relationship was a US guarantee that
Israel would always enjoy military superiority over its neighbours. That looks
much less certain now. Indeed, Trump declared that the US has “no stronger
partner” than Saudi Arabia, a status that used to belong to Israel alone.
What’s more,
Trump showed Riyadh all this love with none of the previous strings attached.
None of it was conditional on Saudi “normalisation” of relations with Israel.
Trump said Prince Mohammed could do that when he was good and ready, free of US
pressure.
And this was
the pattern throughout. Strikingly, in a shift that would have garnered huge
attention had it been any other president but which, because it was Trump, was
just one more turn of the news cycle, Trump welcomed Syria in from the cold. He
lifted US sanctions and praised the country’s new leader as “attractive” and a
“fighter”. Given that until December Ahmed al-Sharaa was on a US list of wanted
terrorists over his links to al-Qaida, and had a $10m bounty on his head, this
is quite the turnaround. Confirming that one of Trump’s great weaknesses as a
negotiator is his tendency to give something for nothing, Trump handed all this
to Sharaa without even raising the security assurances sought by Israel.
Trump is now
in the business of cutting the deals he wants, regardless of the needs of the
US’s one-time key ally. He agreed a separate pact with the Houthis in Yemen,
which prevents them attacking US shipping but leaves them free to keep raining
rockets on Israel. He said he is “very close” to a nuclear deal with Iran,
waving aside the decades-long conviction of the Israeli prime minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions will only be halted by
force. Trump made nice with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, unfazed by the
latter’s hostility to Israel and close ties to Hamas. He even dealt with Hamas
all but directly, securing the group’s release of Edan Alexander, a dual
US-Israeli citizen, a move that Netanyahu only heard about once it was done.
As loudly
and clearly as he can, Trump is telling Netanyahu that he is no longer No 1 and
that he will not get in the way of whatever Trump decides best serves US, and
his own, interests. Part of this is born of frustration with Netanyahu for
failing to play his part in getting the Middle East to the stability, and
therefore prosperity, that Trump thinks is possible and potentially profitable
for the US. Put simply, what Trump wants from Netanyahu is to get the war on
Hamas wrapped up and off the world’s TV screens – and the Israeli PM is not
delivering.
You could
hear that frustration in the remarks of Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Witkoff,
to hostage families in Israel this week: “We want to bring the hostages home,
but Israel is not willing to end the war. Israel is prolonging it.”
In fact,
polls show huge majorities of the Israeli public keen, if not desperate, to see
an immediate end to the war. But Netanyahu is defying his citizens for wholly
selfish reasons. On trial for corruption, he can only be sure to stay out of
prison if he remains in the PM’s chair. To do that, he has to keep his ruling
coalition in place, including the two ultra-nationalist extremists, Itamar
Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Those men want the war to go on and on, dreaming
of a Gaza cleared for the return of Jewish settlements. Thinking only of his
own survival, Netanyahu bows to their demands and keeps the fires of war
burning – no matter the human cost.
Which is how
you end up with the atrocity of an Israeli government using starvation as a
weapon of war, blocking the entry of all aid into Gaza since 2 March. This is
not an accusation against the government; it is a boast made by them. The
defence minister, Israel Katz, spelled it out last month: “Israel’s policy is
clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza.” He described the blocking of aid
as “one of the main pressure levers” on Hamas.
Israeli
officials defend airstrikes such as those that killed scores this week by
saying they’re aimed at Hamas military sites or commanders, including the
group’s leader in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar. But they can make no such claim for
the use of mass hunger, which is indiscriminate by its very nature. It is
legally a war crime and morally unconscionable. And yet it is the stated policy
of this despicable Israeli government.
Too little
attention is paid to the convergence of circumstances that created this
catastrophe: the fact that the heinous Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023
occurred on the watch of an Israeli government shaped by Kahanists and a prime
minister ready to cross every red line to stay out of jail and save his own
skin. That combination has brought us to this terrible moment, when the
suffering and killing seem as if they will never end.
There may be
only one man who can call a halt. Trump could continue what he started this
week, making deals across the Middle East that cut out Israel, but that also do
nothing for Palestinians. Or, following his admission as he left the region on
Friday that people in Gaza are “starving”, and his promise that “we’re going to
get that taken care of”, he could use the muscle he has and force Netanyahu to
accept the bargain that has been on the table for months: the release of all
remaining hostages and an end to the war. Of course, what dozens of stricken
Israeli families and millions of shattered, starving Palestinians need are new
leaders, willing and capable of shaping for themselves a better destiny for
both peoples, ideally together. Until that day, their lives are in the hands of
Donald Trump.
Jonathan
Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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