Nothing captured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s isolation extra starkly this week than the picture of U.S. President Donald Trump shaking fingers with Syria’s interim chief Ahmed al-al-Sharaa – a person Israel has branded a “terrorist in a suit.”
“He’s got the potential. He’s a real leader,” Trump advised reporters after talks with al-Sharaa on Wednesday in Riyadh – a gathering brokered by his Saudi hosts, with whom the U.S. president agreed a slew of arms, business and know-how offers.
Trump’s whirlwind four-day tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week was greater than only a diplomatic spectacle marked by profitable investments.
It sealed the emergence of a brand new Sunni-led Middle East order – one which eclipses Iran’s shattered “axis of resistance,” and leaves Israel sidelined, in line with three regional and two Western sources.
Amid rising irritation in Washington with Israel’s failure to succeed in a cease-fire in Gaza, Trump’s tour was a snub to Netanyahu, an in depth U.S. ally who was the primary overseas chief to go to Washington after the president returned to workplace in January, the sources mentioned.
The message was clear: In Trump’s much less ideological, extra results-driven imaginative and prescient of Middle East diplomacy, Netanyahu may not rely on unconditional U.S. help for his right-wing agenda, the sources mentioned.
“This administration is very frustrated with Netanyahu and that frustration is showing,” mentioned David Schenker, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs beneath Republican former President George W. Bush.
“They’re very, very transactional, and Netanyahu isn’t giving them anything right now.”
The sources mentioned that the U.S. was not about to show its again on Israel, which stays an important U.S. ally whose help in Washington runs deep and is bipartisan.
But the Trump administration needed to ship the message to Netanyahu that America has its personal pursuits within the Middle East and it doesn’t like him standing in its approach, the sources added.
U.S. endurance has been strained not simply by the Israeli prime minister’s refusal to countenance a Gaza cease-fire but additionally his objection to U.S. talks with Iran over its nuclear program, in line with sources accustomed to the matter.
Netanyahu’s workplace didn’t reply to requests for remark. It has made no public statements on Trump’s regional go to.
A spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council emphasised that Trump was a good friend to Israel.
“We continue to work closely with our ally Israel to ensure remaining hostages in Gaza are freed, Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon, and to strengthen regional security in the Middle East,” NSC spokesman James Hewitt mentioned.
While publicly insisting U.S.-Israeli relations stay sturdy, Trump administration officers have privately expressed irritation with Netanyahu’s refusal to fall into line with Washington’s positions on Gaza and Iran, in line with sources accustomed to the matter.
Six regional and Western sources mentioned friction between the U.S. and Israel was constructing earlier than Trump’s regional journey. The pressure started when Netanyahu flew to Washington on a second go to in April in search of Trump’s backing for army strikes on Iran’s nuclear websites – solely to find, to his shock, that Trump was choosing diplomacy.
An unbending advocate for a hardline stance in opposition to Tehran, Netanyahu was caught off guard, studying simply hours earlier than his assembly that negotiations had been about to start out.
In the next weeks, Trump’s declaration of a cease-fire with the Houthis in Yemen, rapprochement with Syria’s new management and bypassing of Israel on his Gulf go to confirmed how the historically shut relations have develop into strained, the sources mentioned.
David Makovsky, a fellow on the Washington Institute, the place he directs a undertaking on Arab-Israeli relations, mentioned Washington and Tel Aviv “don’t seem in sync on the big questions the way they were in the first hundred days” of Trump’s presidency.
Gaza proves divisive
During his election marketing campaign, Trump made clear he needed a cease-fire in Gaza and the hostages there launched earlier than he returned to the White House.
But months into Trump’s presidency, Netanyahu has continued to defy cease-fire calls, expanded the offensive, and supplied no endgame or a post-war plan after 19 months of battle. The dying toll in Gaza has handed 53,000 in latest days, in line with native well being officers.
The conflict – which has sparked worldwide outcry over the humanitarian disaster in Gaza – was triggered by Palestinian resistance group Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 incursion that brought on round 1,200 deaths and captured some 250 hostages.
Any hope that Trump may use his regional go to to cement his picture as a peacemaker and announce a deal to finish the bitterly divisive conflict had been dashed.
Instead, Netanyahu – who’s charged with conflict crimes in Gaza by the International Criminal Court – has doubled down on his intention of crushing Hamas. Netanyahu can also be on trial in Israel over corruption expenses, which he denies.
As Trump wrapped up his go to, Israel launched a brand new offensive on Friday in Gaza. Israeli strikes have killed a whole bunch of Palestinians in latest days.
Trump’s different key precedence – increasing the Abraham Accords, establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab states to incorporate Saudi Arabia – has additionally been blocked by Netanyahu’s intransigence.
Riyadh has made it clear it won’t normalize relations with Israel till the conflict has ceased and there’s a path to Palestinian statehood, one thing Netanyahu rejects.
“He’s got no strategy, no day-after plan on Gaza,” Schenker mentioned. “And he’s standing in the way.”
Publicly, Trump himself has dismissed any speak of a rift. In an interview with Fox News, broadcast after the regional go to, Trump denied being annoyed with Netanyahu, who he mentioned confronted “a tough situation” over the conflict in Gaza.
But Trump is forging forward with out Netanyahu. With unapologetic self-interest, the American president is driving a realignment of U.S. diplomacy towards rich Sunni states, anchored by oil-rich Riyadh.
One senior regional supply mentioned Trump’s go to had topped the influential function of Saudi Arabia because the chief of the Sunni Arab world.
By distinction, years of Iranian overreach – and Israel’s heavy army blows to its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – have left Shiite regional energy Tehran diminished.
“Iran had the leading role; now Saudi Arabia has entered with other tools: the economy, money, investment,” the supply mentioned.
Sunni ascendancy
Although Netanyahu led the struggle in opposition to Iran, the brand new regional order is being formed in Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
The Gulf monarchies are keen to achieve entry to classy weaponry to defend them from assaults by Iran and its proxies, in addition to to safe superior U.S. chips and AI know-how.
In Qatar, on the second leg of his tour, Trump declared Qatar was “absolutely trying to help” with the Israeli hostage disaster.
Trump’s assertion struck a nerve in Jerusalem, the place officers view Doha as a strategic menace bankroling one in every of their bitterest enemies.
Many Israelis “don’t understand just how central Qatar has become to the U.S.,” mentioned Yoel Guzansky, a Senior Fellow on the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, noting it hosts the biggest U.S. army base within the Middle East.
While its ties to Hamas make Qatar a menace to Israel, its huge pure gasoline wealth, monetary clout and diplomatic affect have turned it into an indispensable ally to Washington, Guzanksy added.
In complete, the White House estimated the tour secured greater than $2 trillion in funding commitments for the U.S. financial system – together with main orders of Boeing planes, offers to purchase U.S. protection tools, information and know-how agreements.
A Reuters tally of publicly introduced offers put the full worth at nearer to $700 billion. In Saudi Arabia, Trump agreed a file $142 billion arms take care of Riyadh, stoking Israeli fears over shedding air superiority within the area if Riyadh positive factors entry to Lockheed’s F-35 jet.
At the identical time, in a recalibration of U.S.-Saudi ties, Trump supplied Riyadh leeway on establishing relations with Israel, telling its rulers they might accomplish that in their very own time.
Now, Trump is negotiating a US-led civil nuclear funding for Saudi Arabia – one other deal inflicting concern in Israel.
Sunni states additionally pushed their very own diplomatic agenda. Trump’s shock announcement throughout his tour that he would carry sanctions in opposition to Syria – one other main shift in U.S. coverage – got here on the behest of Saudi Arabia and over the objections of Israel.
Gulf nations have additionally applauded Trump’s truce with the Houthis in Yemen, a part of Iran’s regional “axis of resistance,” which put an finish to a expensive U.S. army operation within the Red Sea.
The announcement, which adopted the opening of nuclear talks with Iran, got here simply two days after a Houthi missile struck Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.
“Israel is more and more looking like a spoiler, that stands in the way not just of the U.S., but the international community, as it tries to shape the region differently after the fall of al-Assad and Hezbollah, and maybe end the Gaza war,” mentioned Guzansky, a former coordinator of Iran-Gulf affairs at Israel’s National Security Council.
While Netanyahu’s right-wing authorities has maintained silence on Trump’s go to, Israeli media have voiced concern that the nation’s standing with its most necessary ally has been eroded.
Opposition politicians have criticized the prime minister for leaving Israel sidelined whereas previous alliances are reconfigured.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who’s getting ready a return to politics, delivered a blistering indictment of Netanyahu’s authorities, capturing the sense of alarm gripping many in Israel’s political and safety institution.
“The Middle East is undergoing tectonic changes before our eyes, our enemies are getting stronger, and Netanyahu … and his gang are paralyzed, passive, as if they don’t exist,” the previous prime minister and minister of protection mentioned on the social media platform X.
Source: www.dailysabah.com