Following Trump’s recent election, Israel, led by Netanyahu, is openly moving toward permanent occupation and potential annexation of parts of the West Bank. Trump’s appointments to his foreign policy team are pro-Israel and anti-Iran. However, geopolitical changes, Arab leader positions, and regional tensions present complex obstacles to Trump’s Middle East ambitions.
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By Marc Champion
It didn’t take long. Within days of Donald Trump’s election victory, Israel’s leaders up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became more open about their intentions for the Palestinian territories: permanent occupation, combined with the annexation of illegally settled parts of the West Bank. Or in the tweeted words of Israel’s ultra-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir: “Yesssss.”
It also isn’t hard to understand the jubilation. For many Israelis, not just Ben Gvir, memories of Trump’s first term are fond ones. He collapsed the nuclear deal with Iran that many profoundly distrusted. He also recognized both Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the occupied Golan Heights as part of its territory.
But more important to hopes in Israel’s government than even these happy recollections is the fact that every appointment the soon-to-be second-term US president has made to his foreign policy team so far is either an Iran hawk, a fierce supporter of Israel (or indeed a greater Israel) or both.
Even so, it would be foolish to say we know exactly what Trump will do over the next four years. Ultimately, he is the decider-in-chief. Events, together with his perception of interests — his own followed by those of the US — will determine his choices. And it’s unlikely those decisions will be simple.
For one thing, Trump is likely to find it much more difficult this time around to keep his friends in both Israel and the Gulf States happy. For another, his goals of ending wars and cutting deals may not always align with Israel’s. That’s less a problem with Lebanon, where the question on an Israeli withdrawal was always “when,” not “if.” Assuming Wednesday’s New York Times report is correct that Israel is already rushing through a cease-fire deal as a pre-inauguration gift to Trump, that will be soon.
Yet the world has changed substantially since 2020 — before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and before the Houthis demonstrated their power to disrupt global shipping from a perch on the Yemeni coast. Iran is also no longer internationally isolated. Today it has deep military ties with Russia, which in turn works in a growing alliance with North Korea and China. Moscow has reportedly sent air defenses to the Houthis. Foreign policy was always a complicated game of chess. But with the more major parties involved, it will have to be played against more opponents, across multiple boards.
That’s especially true in the Middle East, where popular fury over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza has created genuine constraints on Arab leaders. At the same time, Israel’s military success in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran have altered threat perceptions. Iran and its so-called axis of resistance have been materially weakened; the Israel Defense Forces are rampant.
So Arab and Turkish leaders have clarified their public positions since the US election, too. On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, called Israel’s military operations in Gaza “collective genocide,” a term he previously avoided. He also warned against any further attacks on Iran.
This is the same Islamic Republic of Iran that, in 2017, MBS compared to Hitler’s Germany. At the time, Saudi Arabia was engaged in a brutal proxy war against the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen. Two years later, Iranian drones proved their ability to destroy Saudi oil assets with ease. But MBS has since wound down the kingdom’s military intervention in Yemen and restored diplomatic relations with Tehran.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had cut all relations with Israel. Erdogan never misses a chance to grandstand on Muslim resentment toward the Jewish state, yet he had until now avoided breaking ties. These are all clear signals from leaders friendly to Trump that they’re unwilling to be part of maximalist Israeli policies.
Of course, what politicians say on the public stage is often a poor guide to their actual plans. Arab leaders may have condemned Israel over Gaza, for example, but they were happy to see Hamas and Hezbollah damaged and, notably, haven’t terminated the Abraham Accords normalizing relations with Israel, signed during Trump’s previous term. They even quietly helped Israel defend itself against Iranian missile attacks.
“There is a whole element of theater to this,” said Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Jerusalem’s deputy mayor and a special envoy for innovation in the Israeli foreign ministry, reminding me of the origins of the accords.
It was 2019. Netanyahu had — note the current echo — announced plans to annex the Jordan Valley, an area accounting for about 22% of the West Bank. He said he had US backing for the move, but faced with an international outcry the Trump administration persuaded Israel to give up on the plan. In exchange, Netanyahu got an agreement from the United Arab Emirates to formally normalize relations with his country. The UAE was later joined by Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Saudi Arabia had been set to sign a still more consequential deal until Hamas iced that possibility with its Oct. 7 attack, and the inevitable Israeli response that followed.
Saudi Arabia will ultimately play ball with Trump on Israel, says Hassan-Nahoum, because the kingdom “is interested in one thing: a defense pact with the US so they are protected from Iran.” I’m not so sure. That was true in 2020, but I don’t think it’s as binary a choice anymore. MBS’ guiding focus is now the stability he needs for his Vision 2030 plan to diversify the Saudi economy and create jobs. Iran, meanwhile, has become less scary to the kingdom, though that could of course change if it breaks out to build nuclear weapons.
A major attack on Iran’s oil infrastructure or nuclear program — and the retaliation against Saudi assets and tanker shipping lanes it would likely prompt — would likely put MBS’ new top priority at risk. And though he may not care much about the Palestinians, his father King Salman bin Abdulaziz does. So do most other Saudis. That could limit cooperation with Israel.
Trump may again be able to square all these circles with the kind of transactional deal-making that proved so successful in the case of the Abraham Accords. But if so, Netanyahu again won’t be able to have it all: annexation and occupation for the Palestinian territories, support for a decisive attack on Iran and integration with the Arab world.
Sacrificing the last of these for the former would be a poor long-term choice for Israel, as well as a human tragedy for ordinary Palestinians. It’s worth remembering that Oct. 7 revealed a serious flaw in the Abraham Accords: They pretended the Palestinian question didn’t exist.
Read also:
- Marika Sboros: Mandla Mandela and the anti-Israel lobby
- Biden urges restraint from Netanyahu as Israel mulls strike on Iran
- FT: Oil surges after Joe Biden’s comments on Israeli retaliation
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