One Good Thing About Trump Presidency: Netanyahu Getting What He Deserves

Relying on slippery allies is a lesson that Europe is quickly learning, but it appears to be one that Netanyahu shouldn't be too far behind on either. Israel hadn't been established that last time the US was in the grips of the isolationist loonies and, though she managed quite well enough on her own until 1973 without US help, the interdependence of the two countries both diplomatically and militarily is now being put to the test. It begs the question: how compatible is America First with the interests of, not Israel, but its patchwork far-right cabinet.

The harrowing massacres on October 7 weren't just a chilling wake-up call to Israeli society, but perhaps one of the most tragic back-firings in geopolitical history. Likud's bizarre attempt at avoiding the inevitable establishment of a Palestinian state and desire to prolong an unsustainable (and expensive) situation of occupation and deterrence, had it playing the Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) off each other like it was some great feat of realpolitik. The idea was that through moderating and containing the Gaza Strip, the PA's legitimacy to form an actual functioning state would remain a fantasy, and thus the status quo would just... what? Continue? Not implode? Well, this clearly was not the result.

The irony is that, before October 7, things were improving in the Strip where they were deteriorating in the West Bank. Thousands of Gazans were getting permits to work in Israel, whereas the West Bank was being subjected to harsher put downs and settler violence. The incursions in Jenin in January 2023 were the cause of much speculation of a possible Third Intifada, not from the Gaza, but from the occupied territories under Israeli control. Indeed, before the war, I was becoming increasingly critical of the Israeli government, and getting more worried about the Israeli Jewish-Arab sectarianism since the riots in 2021.

Hamas' actions were a shock to everyone. No one, not the US, not Iran, not Israel, Syria, Hezbollah, nor the Houthis, had a clue that Hamas was about to launch its Einsatzgruppen-style pogrom on as many civilians as it could. The motives though, despite the obvious impulse of genocidal mania, were also fairly clear on a "strategic level". In the first place, it was obviously to drag Israel into a predictable response to counteract the material betterment that Gazans were receiving thanks to the Jewish state. In the second place, the growing international isolation of the terror-group from traditional Arab allies, motivated them to get the Israeli government retaliate in a way that would completely derail any Israeli-Saudi normalization in the near or distant future.

With over 1,200 Israeli citizens and foreign nationals butchered, as well as 251 of them taken hostage, there was a moment for an astute bit of statecraft from the long-term (though not without hiatuses) Israeli PM. There was an opportunity for Netanyahu to accomplish perhaps the greatest feats of Israeli foreign policy in history. If, instead of the standard Israeli unilateralism that led to the inevitable disaster that we're witnessing today, Netanyahu climbed onto the world-stage and asked for help in fighting Hamas, perhaps Israel's dismal international reputation might have actually improved instead of falling to rock bottom.

In fact, a few days before the Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip began, Emmanuel Macron called for just such a multilateralist approach (and I had called for a week before the French president had). The context was the same as the Combined Joint Task Force that was put together to put down the threat from Islamic State with the added bonus of some serious diplomatic wins for Israel, especially if, in such a coalition, it became the first time that major Arab countries fought officially on the same side as the Israelis. This could have led to genuine solution to the nearing century-old dispute, and things might have looked much sunnier than they do at the moment. ​

Of course, however, the decision to go into Gaza alone was plagued with problems from the start. The impossible joint task of rescuing both the hostages and defeating Hamas has eventually been revealed to be a complete falsehood, as now it's plain that the latter goal has always been more important than the other. What's more, the impossibility of this cabinet-held hostage itself by its far-right Kahanist partners-to decide on any clear strategy or aims in Gaza was always going to get in way of any moral objectives (and solutions) to the conflict. Whereas a more moderate government might have made a hostage-deal much sooner, the utopian vision of "owning" Gaza has had the likes of Ben Gvir and Smotrich frothing at the mouth.

A more moderate government, however, might have had the foresight to make a hostage-deal much sooner and to work with the PA to reestablish their control in Gaza. Moreover, it might have found some compromise with the Saudis to agree on normalization in exchange for Palestinian statehood, and therefore expanding the Abraham Accords with US pressure on the Arab states to take responsibility for security of both the Strip and the West Bank. Instead, the result has been a complete and utter mess for Israel, and it's looking to only get worse.

Trump's isolationism has sent shock waves around the naive liberal world who relied too heavily on the US's amenability and desire for continued global hegemony. Europe is now scrambling around to raise spending for defense, and Israel is finding it less and less easy to find a supporting ear in the White House for keeping up the obviously failed war in the Gaza Strip. But the most striking part has, as Trump makes his way round the Arab world, is that he would be more than willing to forego Israel's interests in expanding of the Abraham Accord if it means protecting American interests.

For Netanyahu, this is an unexpected lurch from the Biden administrations soft skepticism to something bordering on indifference to his personal political predicament. Though Trump has shown his support for the Israeli PM through the ghastly unethical "Riviera plan" for post-war Gaza, the President is looking at ending wars rather than perpuating them, not matter the consequences. One only has to look at the Trump administrations treatment of Mr. Zelensky to grasp that ending conflict at any cost (regardless of whether they bring, peace, stability, or just keep the can even further down the road) is what Washington believes in now.

For Israel, this means yet another wake-up call, and essentially facing a reality more similar to before 1973 than since, where the Jewish State will need to tighten up its self-reliance and be wary of where the US wants the pieces to fall. With Netanyahu's both political paralysis and incapacity of adapting to a more pragmatic position, I'm afraid he will continue to drag his country with him into pariahdom.