How Do We Interpret Trump’s Presidency and Alliance With Netanyahu?

November 08, 2024

Nasser Kandil

• The significance of Donald Trump’s rapport with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been exaggerated, often portrayed as Trump’s pursuit of American Jewish votes. However, election results show that only 20% of Jewish voters supported Trump, while Kamala Harris and the Democrats secured 80% of their votes.

• It is accurate to say that Trump, like all U.S. presidents, cannot abandon support for the occupying entity, and he will offer whatever America can provide. Since the Biden administration left little room for further concessions, there is little Trump can add. Trump, advocating for “great America” over “Greatness” and “Americanisation” over “Globilisation”, is no more inclined to engage the U.S. in wars than Biden was.

• Some draw conclusions based on two significant actions during Trump’s first term that suggest his level of support for Netanyahu’s wars. The first is Trump’s political decisions favouring the entity, from the announcement of the ‘Deal of the Century’ and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as the entity’s unified capital, to endorsing the annexation of Palestinian lands in the West Bank and promoting this move to settlers, culminating in his support for the annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

The second is his alignment with Netanyahu against Iran, notably through the unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal (originally brokered by Obama) and authorising the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

• Regardless of the significance of these two events, two contrasting actions during Trump’s first term highlight a different approach. First, Trump avoided escalation with Iran even after Iran downed a high-tech U.S. spy drone, saying it wasn’t worth going to war since no blood was shed and that sanctions on Iran were effective and would suffice. The second, possibly more significant event, was highlighted in New York Times by Thomas Friedman, involved Trump’s response to a Yemeni drone attack on Saudi oil facilities – Aramco, which was blamed on Iran. Trump’s reluctance to respond led Friedman to highlight regional recalculation by Gulf states and “Israel”, using a sarcastic tone to describe the event and pointing out the U.S. doesn’t want wars and allies must manage their own affairs without expecting U.S. intervention.

• Trump’s support for Israel’s annexation moves shows his lack of scrutiny over Netanyahu’s actions, so long as they require only political support. Trump’s focus is on Gulf-Israel normalisation rather than realistic peace with the Palestinians. But was Biden’s administration any different? Was the timing of Al-Aqsa’s turmoil anything but a reaction to Biden’s India-Europe corridor initiative passing through the Gulf states to Haifa, which sidelines the Palestinian cause? Regarding the assassination of Commander Qassem Soleimani by an American decision – an overtly hostile act – a question is raised: how is it any different from the potential assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah or Hamas’s Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh, with full American blessing and protection?

• Any hostile action that an American administration or the Israeli government refrains from taking is certainly not driven by a rational approach to the region’s conflict aimed at engaging the region’s people or the resistance forces in pursuit of a settlement. Nor is it due to an imagined rift between the U.S. and Israel, regardless of whether the administration is Democratic or Republican, or whether the president is Biden, Kamala Harris, or Trump. The restraint is instead a clear acknowledgment of either incapacity or the grave risk of consequences. It has become evident that targeting Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities is beyond the capacity of Washington or Tel Aviv to bear the repercussions. The potential Iranian response would significantly impact the occupying entity with distinct and serious countermeasures, while unleashing a major regional upheaval that would compel Washington to engage its military in a war and trigger global oil, financial, and economic crises. Trump, like Biden – and perhaps even more so – would seek to avoid such a scenario as he begins his new term, given his central focus on U.S. economic priorities, which would be rendered impossible by a crisis of this magnitude.

• There is certainly a difference between a Democratic and a Republican president when it comes to their stance on the entity. A Democratic president – as a ‘Zionist’, sees the entity as a strategic forward base for the Western imperial project led by Washington. This comes with a sense of responsibility for its future against shared adversaries – providing support on one hand, and on the other, reigning it in when its reckless wars threaten its own security. This approach stems from caution, not divergence in goals. In contrast, a Republican president, as an ‘Israeli’, tends to view the entity as a Middle Eastern ally that shares the cultural, economic, and political spirit of the West, deserving of support but without the deep commitment to its defence. Trump, who has threatened to withdraw from NATO engagements, is unlikely to go to war for the entity’s sake. A Democratic president, backed by America’s Jewish voters, is more inclined to consider the entity’s leaders, unlike a Republican president, who receives limited Jewish support. If voter appeal is a factor, Trump may find himself more concerned with those influencing the Lebanese Shiite electorate in Detroit – who tipped the scale in his favor in the last election – than with those aligned with Jewish voters. Thus, for Trump, the ‘Nabih Berri versus Benjamin Netanyahu’ equation is very much in play, as a dealmaker now seated in the White House.”**