How the times change. At one time Netanyahu and the right wing in Israeli politics thought they had a close partisan in the White House. But as Ben Caspit noted two weeks ago in AL Monitor, it’s all been sliding away:
Some in Israel are watching with consternation as the Trump administration takes shape. Almost all of the leading supporters of Israel mentioned as possible candidates for senior positions have been left out of the administration, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The only real pro-Israel appointment is David Friedman, and with all due respect to the prospective ambassador to Israel, what Israel actually needs is a presence in the Pentagon and the State Department. Instead, it has Defense Secretary James Mattis, who declared that the capital of Israel is Tel Aviv, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has never visited Israel and has close ties with the Arab world because of his past work in the oil industry.
The euphoria in Jerusalem is dissipating. On Jan. 28, Netanyahu tweeted his support for the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico, writing, “President Trump is right.” Although the tweet got him into hot water with the Mexican government and Mexico’s Jewish community, Netanyahu has no real regrets. It is important for him to stay close to Trump and become his best friend as quickly as possible. Only after the two men meet will it be known if this is possible.
It’s disturbing to me that my first thought was that the two of the three best allies Israel were hoping for are not particularly attractive, physically speaking (I think Romney is quite distinguished looking, but he never had a chance with Trump – he didn’t hand over any green, and rather famously bashed Trump during the campaign, which are the number three and two metrics Trump appears to use in appointments). I mean, regardless of the fact that Guiliani appeared to be a shrill, grasping partisan, rather than a dignified personality appropriate to an important Cabinet post, to me it was his physical deportment which would fail his case with Trump.
And it appears that Netanyahu’s expectations are coming to naught. as The New York Times reports on his very recent meeting with Trump:
President Trump jettisoned two decades of diplomatic orthodoxy on Wednesday by declaring that the United States would no longer insist on the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for the first time since becoming president, Mr. Trump promised a concerted effort to bring the two sides together, suggesting a regional effort involving an array of Arab nations. But he said that he was flexible about how an agreement would look and that he would not be bound by past assumptions.
“I’m looking at two-state and one-state” formulations, Mr. Trump said during a White House news conference with Mr. Netanyahu. “I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.”
At the same time, Mr. Trump urged Mr. Netanyahu to temporarily stop new housing construction in the West Bank while he pursues a deal, echoing a position past presidents have taken. “I’d like to see you hold back on settlements for a little bit,” he told Mr. Netanyahu.
While it’s true Trump did not endorse the two state solution disdained by the Israeli right, what he basically said was, I don’t care, you guys figure it out. That leaves Prime Minister Netanyahu with a critical question: Does the United States have my back? The shock of the Obama Administration declining to veto a United Nations resolution critical of Israeli settlement building lead to Netanyahu angrily charging the United States with instigating the resolution. From The Guardian:
Israel has escalated its already furious war with the outgoing US administration, claiming that it has “rather hard” evidence that Barack Obama was behind a critical UN security council resolution criticising Israeli settlement building, and threatening to hand over the material to Donald Trump. …
“We have rather iron-clad information from sources in both the Arab world and internationally that this was a deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped create the resolution in the first place,” Keyes said.
Doubling down on the claim a few hours later the controversial Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, went even further suggesting it had gathered evidence that it would present to the incoming Trump administration.
How will Netanyahu proceed? What if Trump just ignores Israeli affairs, distracted by his own woeful nuclear meltdown? Is this when the Israeli right wing will just annex all of the lands in question and hope the world will just shrug?
Netanyahu has a lot to think about, now that he’s found that Trump isn’t a mature leader.
