Is Trump really turning his back on Bibi and Israel? Don’t bet on it Ruthie Blum
https://www.jns.org/is-trump-really-turning-his-back-on-bibi-and-israel-dont-bet-on-it/
It doesn’t take a degree in political science to sense an ulterior motive in recent reports about a rift between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The effort to promote the alleged schism isn’t exactly covert, after all.
No, it emanates from two sets of extremists: isolationists in the Trump camp and anti-Netanyahu Israelis. The former consider the slogan “Make America Great Again” as an excuse for staying out of the world’s conflicts, as though battles abroad, even against radical Islamists bent on toppling “the Great Satan” and annihilating the small one, are of no concern to Americans.
These particular MAGA Republicans view anyone who supports the use of military force to defeat Iran and its proxies as a “neocon warmonger” willing to risk American lives on behalf of the Jewish state.
Antisemitic undertones aside, Israelis with separate false claims—among them that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza at the expense of the hostages to preserve his coalition—are happy to echo the schism narrative. This group includes protest leaders and their parrots in the media who consider Bibi more dangerous than a nuclear Iran and its terrorist tentacles.
Though Trump’s confusing statements on what a deal with the Islamic Republic would entail—a complete dismantling of its entire nuclear program or only that which is enriching uranium for military purposes—have provided fodder for journalists jumping on the opportunity to publish havoc-wreaking accounts, nail-biters should take the storyline with a grain of salt.
The same goes for hysteria over his announcement on Tuesday of a truce with the Houthis. Since the Iran-backed terrorist group had “capitulated,” and promised to stop attacking ships in the Red Sea, said Trump, the U.S. would cease bombing in Yemen.
The surprise declaration emerged during Trump’s press conference in the Oval Office next to newly instated Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. It came on the heels of Israel’s retaliatory strikes in Yemen on Monday and Tuesday for the Houthi missile that hit an open area next to Ben-Gurion International Airport on Sunday.
It preceded a Reuters dispatch, citing “two sources with knowledge of the matter,” that the “United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks.”
Immediately, rumors began spreading that Trump was “sidelining,” if not totally severing ties with, Netanyahu. The Israeli daily Israel Hayom asserted: “Sources in the president’s inner circle report that he has grown increasingly frustrated with the Israeli prime minister.”
Israel’s Army Radio also invoked nameless figures to discuss the issue. Tweeting the content of his morning broadcast, Yanir Cozin wrote: “What is the reason for the change in tone and approach towards Israel by the American administration in the past week? Israeli political sources who spoke with Trump administration officials explain: “They want results. If we don’t come to them with plans and timetables, they move forward. We see it with Iran; we see it with the Houthis; and we will also see it with Gaza. It’s not an atmosphere of crisis; it’s just that time is more valuable to them than it is to us. Trump has a year in which he needs to show results. He doesn’t have time.”
Cozin subsequently added, “A senior Israeli official says in this context: ‘It didn’t help that [Strategic Affairs Minister Ron] Dermer talked to senior Republicans in his usual arrogance about what Trump ‘must do.’ Trump’s inner circle told him that Netanyahu was manipulating him, and there’s nothing Trump hates more than being portrayed as a sucker and someone being played, so he decided to cut off contact. This may change, but that’s the situation for now.”
Employing anonymous “sources” for such consequential topics is a neat trick to stir up trouble. It’s a form of lazy coverage that enables slant to hide in plain sight by cloaking itself in authority.
That’s why it’s imperative to note conflicting versions of what is essentially gossip in disguise. Take Axios’s latest self-touted “scoop,” for example. In it, correspondent Barak Ravid reveals that a “private meeting” took place on Thursday between Trump and Dermer.
Yes, that Dermer. The one who supposedly “talked to senior Republicans in his usual arrogance” about what the president “must do.”
Ravid wrote that the meeting in question—held at the White House “ahead of the fourth round of nuclear talks between the U.S and Iran on Sunday in Muscat and President Trump’s trip to the Middle East starting on Monday”—was “not made public by the U.S. or Israel.”
Yet, later in the same piece, he said that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the get-together. Apparently, then, the sit-down wasn’t being kept secret.
In fairness, Ravid pointed out that it’s not typical for American presidents to meet with foreign officials who aren’t heads of state. What he didn’t acknowledge, however, is that Trump’s making an exception for Dermer suggests that relations aren’t as sour as certain “sources” would like them to be.
Another clue that Washington hasn’t turned its back on Jerusalem is that U.S. Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (doubling as interim national security advisor) and special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff were present at the powwow. Rest assured that had there been the slightest hint of dressing down of Dermer during that chat, Ravid would have been dining out on it with a vengeance.
Furthermore, in an interview on Wednesday with “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” Trump reaffirmed his steadfast alliance with Netanyahu and expressed alarm over the surge in antisemitism across the United States.
How the two allies proceed in the next days and weeks remains to be seen. Nevertheless, writing off the bond between them is not merely premature. It’s irresponsible propaganda that emboldens enemies of both.
Comments are closed.
