Israel Is Wondering if the Trump Administration Is Still on Its Side on Gaza and the Abraham Accords

As Americans across the political spectrum increasingly express criticism of Israel, Israelis are debating whether many of Washington’s recent policy decisions in the Middle East will harm them. The US government is often portrayed as trying to control Israeli politics and limit its freedom of action. Comments in the Israeli and Arab press questioned whether the United States was treating Israel as a 51st nation rather than an independent, sovereign nation.

According to a recent poll by the Israel democracy Institute, nearly half of Israelis believe the United States has “greater influence over security decisions” than their government.

As Americans across the political spectrum increasingly express criticism of Israel, Israelis are debating whether many of Washington’s recent policy decisions in the Middle East will harm them. The US government is often portrayed as trying to control Israeli politics and limit its freedom of action. Comments in the Israeli and Arab press questioned whether the United States was treating Israel as a 51st nation rather than an independent, sovereign nation.

According to a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, nearly half of Israelis believe the United States has “greater influence over security decisions” than their government.

In the United States, criticism of Israel is rising across the ideological divide. According to the Pew Research Center, negative views of Israel have risen among Republicans, mostly among younger demographics, over the past three years. Evangelical Christians, traditionally the strongest pro-Israel demographic in the United States, have also expressed outrage over US President Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran, seen as a betrayal of the promise to end “forever wars”, under pressure from Israel.

But the toughest challenge stems from MAGA’s anti-Israel, pro-Trump base. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have questioned US support for Israel. However, others in the wider MAGA world are using this disagreement with politics as an excuse to make anti-Semitic comments. In October, Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a far-right white nationalist, and offered him a platform. Fuentes delivered blatantly anti-Semitic views, accusing American Jews of rejecting assimilation and “organized Jewry” as the main obstacle to national unity.

Experts agree that American support for Israel will continue under the Trump administration, but the Israeli government may change course to be more clear on the MAGA rule about how Israel serves American interests. “We need to shift from a model of economic aid to a model of mutual cooperation on the military side,” said Eran Lerman, Israel’s former deputy national security adviser and vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS). As long as Trump himself has full control of the dynamics, relations with Israel are safe.”

But others say Trump is the biggest part of the problem. His relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was far from friendly. “Fuck him,” Trump said of Netanyahu in an interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid for his book. Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Remaking of the Middle East. The biggest concern is that his support for Israel is not a matter of principle, based on a commitment to support a historically discriminated society or to support democracy in the Middle East, but instead presents himself as a man of peace and guarantees himself a Nobel Prize.

In fact, to the consternation of the Israeli strategic community, Trump gave his ear to Arab leaders who wanted more weapons, more American support to improve their economies, and managed to prevent Trump from abandoning Palestinian aspirations entirely. Despite his recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli (not Syrian) territory and the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in his last administration, Arabs continue to actively whisper in Trump’s ear, dazzling him with lavish praise and even a luxury plane.

Trump told Ravid that he did not believe Netanyahu wanted to reach an agreement and end the conflict with the Palestinians while opposition leader Benny Gantz did. Mostly, his criticism seemed to come from Netanyahu’s congratulatory letter to Joe Biden after he won the 2020 US presidential election. Although Ravid also noted that Trump’s tone toward Netanyahu, in a later conversation, was much softer, the book’s account revealed darker shades of a relationship that was often represented as strong.

Trump has announced his support for Netanyahu in recent days, and this month asked the Israeli president to pardon him in corruption cases. But experts believe this is part of a larger gambit: preventing Netanyahu from annexing the West Bank and maintaining the ceasefire, regardless of the delay – or even certainty – in disarming Hamas.

Shortly after the ceasefire was agreed upon, Trump rushed several members of his team — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance — to seat Bibi, or prevent Netanyahu, nicknamed Bibi, from attacking Hamas. Eliminating Hamas was one of the goals of the Israeli war, but with Hamas still in control of 47% of the Gaza Strip, some Israelis say it is now up to Trump to achieve this goal.

“Trump is the head of the peace council,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, director of JISS. “So he has to implement the process of disarming Hamas.” But he admitted that Trump’s plan was not clear about a timeline or disarmament process.

About 20 miles from Gaza, the United States has established a civil-military coordination center, where 200 American soldiers and representatives from various Western countries roam. The idea behind establishing a logistics center is to plan the next phases of Trump’s peace plan, but it also puts Israeli politics and the IDF under the radar of foreign forces and ties their hands.

Many other areas of political disagreement have emerged. Trump’s decision to sell the latest F-35 fighter jet to Saudi Arabia has alarmed many in Israel. Although Israel is keen to normalize relations with Riyadh, it does not want to lose its qualitative military superiority in the region. Trump’s lifting of sanctions on Syria and his embrace of former jihadist-turned-president Ahmed al-Sharaa have raised alarm in Israel.

Moreover, Trump’s support for Qatar and Turkey, which the United States sees as major players who can influence Hamas, while Israel considers them sympathetic to Hamas, appears difficult to deal with. After what appeared to be a forced apology from Netanyahu to Qatar – over the bombing of Hamas leaders in Doha – the United States now reportedly supports Turkey’s inclusion in the international stabilization force that will be deployed in Gaza, while Israel has refused to accept the presence of Turkish troops on the ground.

Some say the cracks in American support for Israel are exaggerated, and that the outcome of Trump’s policy remains largely in Israel’s favor.

However, it cannot be denied that a combination of factors are at play – including the high death toll in Gaza, where more than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed; A right-wing coalition in Israel is pushing for the annexation of the West Bank and the expulsion of the Palestinians. The fear that the United States will enter another war against Iran on behalf of Israel; The dispersion of support for Israel among Trump’s fan base, for the first time, prompts Americans to question the basis of American support for Israel. In a 60 minutes In an interview with Lesley Stahl last month, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and one of his two top Middle East negotiators, said that Trump felt that “the Israelis were starting to get a little out of control in what they were doing, and that it was time…to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interest.”

Yossi Michelberg, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said Israelis have mixed views on Trump’s policy toward Israel. But it is difficult to argue that the decline in Israeli support among Americans was “so dangerous strategically,” he said, that it should lead to a change in Israeli government policy. Michelberg added that Israel receives 69% of its weapons from the United States, in addition to all kinds of diplomatic support.

There is no turning back for Israel if the United States wants to lead regional policy without taking into account all of Israel’s desires. Israel has no choice but to work with anyone in the Oval Office, even with a president who is on the one hand very popular — since he got a deal that returned the hostages — but on the other hand appears to be interfering in the country’s legal system. Trump appears to have offended some Israelis, who felt he had no right to seek a pardon for Netanyahu in legal cases. “It was strange for Trump to ask for a pardon for Netanyahu, completely oblivious to the fact that he has no legal standing to do so,” Mekelberg said.

For its part, instead of a visionary policy shift toward ending the war in a way that leads to peace, and thus regaining some lost support in the United States, Netanyahu’s government is accused of hiring public relations firms to create pro-Israel content online and change the narrative there.