Trump’s Triumph – Free Rein for Bibi?

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition partners are celebrating Donald Trump’s election victory. But the future US president could still cause headaches for the government in Jerusalem, as our columnist Richard C. Schneider writes.

His wish has been fulfilled: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had hoped that his old buddy Donald Trump would become the new US president. He believes that now every­thing will be easier for him with Trump in office: The war in Gaza, the war in Lebanon, the war with Iran and then also the gradual conversion of liberal democracy in Israel into a so-called ‘illiberal democracy’, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán calls his author­i­tarian system in Hungary.

Will Trump give Netanyahu a free hand?

During his first term in office, Donald Trump did a lot for his friend Netanyahu. He moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he recog­nized the annex­ation of the Golan Heights, and he cancelled the nuclear deal with Iran at Netanyahu’s behest.

Now, so hopes ‘Bibi’, as Netanyahu is called in Israel, he will be free and will no longer have to deal with the pressure and criticism of the Biden admin­is­tration. What is certain is that Trump has less interest than Joe Biden in issues like human rights and inter­na­tional law. But it is far from certain that he will give Netanyahu a free hand to do as he pleases in Lebanon and especially in Gaza.

It is also unclear whether Trump will be as generous as President-elect Joe Biden in supplying Israel with weapons, not to mention joint defense measures against direct Iranian rocket attacks involving US soldiers and pilots.

No interest in war

Trump, to put it casually, is not inter­ested in war. He says so too. He wants peace in Lebanon and Gaza as quickly as possible, preferably before he moves into the White House at the end of January. As far as Lebanon is concerned, he might just achieve that. At the moment there is a lot of activity going on behind the scenes. Netanyahu’s right-hand man Ron Dermer was in Moscow a few days ago and is on his way to Washington – they may be preparing a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

As for Gaza, the situation is more difficult. For more than a year now, the Israeli prime minister has been insisting that the army will not withdraw from there for security reasons. What’s more, Israel is appar­ently in the process of ‘emptying’ the northern part of Gaza and pushing all civilians into the south of the coastal strip. This is being sold as a security measure, but many observers fear that it could be a prepa­ration for a permanent occupation and – as the right-wing extremists in Netanyahu’s coalition want – the re-settlement of Gaza. Would Trump allow this to happen?

The Great Deal Maker

What is certain is that Trump sees himself as a great deal maker and a brilliant businessman who also wants and who can negotiate deals in the world of politics. He could force a ceasefire on Netanyahu in Gaza, especially if he, Trump, were then able to free the few Israeli hostages still alive. He would be a hero in the US, but even more so in Israel, where the majority of people are already glad that Trump won the US elections. Most Israelis also like Trump because they have benefited from him during his first term. Let’s not forget the Abraham Accords, the agreement with the Emirates and Bahrain, and, also with Morocco and Sudan, which seemed to usher in a new era in the Middle East.

Trump really did think ‘out of the box’ and persuaded the Arab states to finally make a deal with Israel. In return, they also got a great deal from the USA: Trump promised UAE fighter jets and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara was accepted by the dealmaker in return for a normal­ization agreement with Israel.

At the time, Trump also wanted to get the Saudis on board, which Joe Biden tried to do as well, and they were almost there when every­thing was blocked by the Hamas massacre on 7 October and the subse­quent war. But Trump is likely wanting to continue with this too, and if he were to succeed in brokering a deal between Israel and the Saudis, it would indeed be he, the man considered a political muddlehead, who would bring a new regional order to the Middle East.

How to deal with Tehran?

And then there is Iran. Even now, voices from Trump’s entourage have announced that he wants to reintroduce a policy of ‘maximum pressure’ on Tehran. This has certainly pleased Netanyahu. Should he now decide to attack Iran directly again in order to destroy the oil fields or even the nuclear facil­ities – insofar as Israel would be able to do so – it is possible that Trump would let Bibi have his way. But whether the US Army would go into such a battle alongside the Israelis is even more questionable under his presi­dency than under Joe Biden’s.

Because Trump no longer sees why the US should wage war every­where and use its own army, its own people and its own resources. Israel wants to go to war? Very well, it should do whatever it wants, but without us – this is roughly what Trump thinks when you analyze his previous statements.

This brings up another important aspect that could poten­tially really hurt Netanyahu and Israel: The 10-year agreement that Israel signed during the presi­dency of Barack Obama will expire in 2026. According to the agreement, Israel receives around 3.8 billion US dollars in military support annually. Last year, many billions more in military aid were added, and the US supplied the Israelis with (almost) every­thing Jerusalem needed for the current war.

The Future of Military Aid

How will Trump deal with military aid? He is already criti­cizing the enormous sums that Washington has spent on behalf of Jerusalem. In general, he says that in the future, those states that need or want favors from the USA will have to pay something back accord­ingly. Will this also apply to Israel? Will Trump tie military aid to condi­tions that could possibly restrict the scope of Israeli politics and the military? The idea is not far-fetched. However, Trump may actually make an exception for Israel. The fact that Trump wants to make Elise Stefanik the new UN ambas­sador could point in this direction. Stefanik is a very clear pro-Israeli and became inter­na­tionally known through her sharp tribunal against the rectors of the Ivy League univer­sities: In her hearing, when asked by Stefanik whether they would tolerate the call for the exter­mi­nation of Jews at their univer­sities, actually answered with the sentence ‘it depends on the context’. A sentence that is now used as a malicious bon mot to demon­strate the absurdity of this argument.

It remains to be seen

However, Israel could face further problems in the Trump era. If Trump makes good on his threat to impose punitive tariffs of 60% on the Chinese and up to 20% on everyone else, this would have even worse conse­quences for the Israeli economy: It is already in crisis due to the war and the downgrading by the rating agencies. Israel exports goods and products worth tens of billions to the US.

Never­theless, Netanyahu and his coalition partners are sure that they will be able to realize their long-held dreams under Trump. Netanyahu has just appointed a new man to the position of Israeli ambas­sador to Washington, who will replace the liberal Michael Herzog. His name is Yechiel Leiter, an ideolog­i­cally motivated settler who, like ministers Ben Gvir, Smotrich and others, dreams of defin­i­tively annexing the West Bank and thus making a Pales­tinian state impos­sible forever. With Trump, this step is at least conceivable. But who knows how the new US president will really act? It is well known how erratic and volatile he is. Perhaps every­thing will turn out quite differ­ently from how Bibi and his followers imagine the new ‘golden’ era.