Many have made a big deal recently over a supposed split between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Many believe that this supposed split will be the end of American support for Israel and its foreign policy in the Middle East.
But is any of this actually true? It’s worth remembering what happened the last time Trump reportedly split with Israel, and it also seems like Trump’s reported “split” with Netanyahu will only help rather than hinder Israel’s foreign policy goals.
The story seems to originate from a report in the Israeli newspaper “Israel Hayom”.
What the report actually states is that “there is mutual disappointment between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the US President,” according to “sources close to the president”.
The report notes that “the American president has also lost patience with the Israeli Prime Minister” and “decided not to wait any longer for Israel but to advance steps in the Middle East without waiting for Netanyahu”.
The report notes that:
The sources explained that the president is interested in making decisions that he believes will advance the United States, particularly regarding Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Israel was supposed to take part in some of these steps – apparently referring mainly to normalization with Saudi Arabia – but according to Trump, Netanyahu is delaying making the necessary decisions. Against this background, the president is not willing to wait until Israel does
The report went on to note that “Trump is not currently scheduled to visit Israel as part of his visit to the region next week”.
This report has been overblown by some, making it seem like Trump has cut off communication with Netanyahu altogether, when in reality, he is just not meeting with him during his current trip to the Middle East.
But we cannot forget what happened the last time Trump supposedly put pressure on Israel, and a closer look at Trump's current actions in the Middle East suggests that they are more in support of Israel’s interests than against.
Trump’s Fake Pressure.
One important thing to remember is the fact that Trump already had an apparent “split” with Netanyahu, which he later backtracked on.
In January of this year, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Trump’s Middle East Envoy, Steven Witkoff, put pressure on Israel and “forced Israel to accept a plan that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected over the past half year”.
However, once the ceasefire was in place, Haaretz reported that multiple insider Israeli sources told them Netanyahu intends to intentionally sabotage the ceasefire deal by refusing to move on to its agreed-upon second phase.
The New York Times wrote, “The current standoff stems in part from Hamas’s accusation that Israel has not upheld its promises for the first phase of the cease-fire. Israel was required to send hundreds of thousands of tents into Gaza, a promise that Hamas says Israel has not kept. Three Israeli officials and two mediators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said that Hamas’s claims were accurate.”
Instead of pressuring Israel to adhere to the ceasefire agreement, Trump backed Netanyahu’s sabotage of it by approving a 3 billion dollar arms sale to him.
Trump also backtracked on his stated position on Yemen.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump correctly opposed Biden’s Yemen bombing on Israel’s behalf, saying to journalist Tim Pool, “I see, recently, they're (Biden admin) dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don't have to do that”
Trump’s top Middle East Advisor for the Pentagon even wrote an article where he opposed the bombing of Yemen, saying that “Working to increase aid shipments to Gaza would not just help to alleviate the humanitarian crisis there, but would deprive the Houthis of their claimed justification for attacks in the Red Sea and provide the group with an offramp for de-escalation that would also serve to prevent indefinite U.S. participation in a broader regional war.”
He wrote that the Yemen conflict should be resolved by “increased diplomatic pressure on the Israeli government to allow more aid into Gaza,” which he said was “a step the Biden Administration remains uninterested in taking”.
Despite this, Trump has been bombing Yemen for Israel for the last two months.
The Isreali paper Jerusalem Post reported that Trump’s bombing of Yemen was “coordinated” with Isreal’s return to the genocide in Gaza because “The Houthis, with their ballistic missiles, are the last Iranian proxy that could most viably threaten Israel immediately in retaliation for a return to war such as seems to be happening.”
Despite the fact that he reportedly forced Israel to accept a ceasefire and opposed bombing Yemen for Israel, he backtracked on all that and supported Israel in their sabatoge of the ceasefire and return to genocide and bombed Yemen in coordination with Israel because the Houthis were the last resistance group in the Middle East getting in the way of Israels genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza.
This recent history should tell one more than they need to know about how serious Trump is about going against Israel and Netanyahu’s demands.
What Is Trump Doing In Saudi Arabia?
A large basis for the claim that Trump is splitting with Netanyahu is based on the fact that during his current visit to the Middle East, he is visiting Saudi Arabia and not Israel.
As the original “Israel Hayom” article reports
The (Trump administration) sources explained that the president is interested in making decisions that he believes will advance the United States, particularly regarding Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Israel was supposed to take part in some of these steps – apparently referring mainly to normalization with Saudi Arabia – but according to Trump, Netanyahu is delaying making the necessary decisions. Against this background, the president is not willing to wait until Israel does what is expected of it and moves forward without it.
It should be noted that as part of normalization with Israel, Saudi Arabia expects the end of the war in Gaza and an Israeli declaration of a ‘horizon for a Palestinian state,’ or similar wording.
Trump is not going to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire and recognize a Palestinian state, he is going to get Saudi Arabia to drop this as a condition for normalization with Israel.
This has been a long-time plan from Benjamin Netanyahu, dating back to before October 7th, to normalize with Saudi Arabia and get them to fully abandon the Palestinians and to allow a full takeover of Gaza and the West Bank.
As journalist Jeremy Scahill reported :
Just two weeks before the October 7 attacks, the Israeli leader delivered a speech at the UN general assembly in New York, brandishing a map of what he promised could be the ‘New Middle East.’ It depicted a state of Israel that stretched continuously from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Gaza and the West Bank, as Palestinian lands, were erased.
During that speech, Netanyahu portrayed the full normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia as the linchpin of his vision for this “new” reality
(emphasis: mine)
This was the basic premise of the “Abraham Accords” that Trump negotiated in his last term.
The deal, which allowed for the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco to normalize relations with Israel, was intended to have the four Arab States “let their support for the Palestinians slip and side a little closer with the Israelis,” as Vox news reported.
As Jeremy Scahill wrote, “The Abraham Accords, launched under President Donald Trump, effectively excised the issue of Palestinian self-determination as a condition for normalization, a major victory for Israel.”
The behind-the-scenes architect of this Netanyahu-approved plan was Jared Kushner, as the New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote, “The Trump Administration, led by Jared Kushner, helped draft the Abraham Accords, which aimed to normalize relations between Israel and the Sunni-ruled states, sidelining the Palestinians yet again.”
As Mother Jones reported, the Abraham Accords “ essentially kicked the Palestinians and their grievances (the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, its apartheid policies, and its blockade of Gaza, which turned the strip, according to Human Rights Watch, into an ‘open-air prison’) to the curb”.
What makes the current trip to Saudi Arabia particularly interesting is that Jared Kushner, the mastermind behind the Abraham Accords, is secretly advising the Trump administration.
CNN reports :
As President Donald Trump prepares for the first major foreign trip to the Middle East of his second term, some administration officials have privately turned to a familiar face for help navigating the region: Jared Kushner.
The president’s son-in-law, who served as a chief Middle East negotiator in Trump’s first term and built deep relationships with leaders in the region, has been informally advising administration officials on negotiations with Arab leaders, multiple Trump administration officials and people close to Kushner tell CNN. Though Kushner is unlikely to join Trump on the trip, he has been heavily involved in discussions with Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, about signing agreements that would normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, the sources said.
(Emphasis: Mine)
The Israeli newspaper Ynet reported :
Kushner, who was instrumental in brokering the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term, has maintained strong ties with regional leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Although he is not expected to join Trump on this trip, sources have confirmed that he has played a significant role in shaping the administration’s approach to sensitive talks with Saudi officials. These discussions aim to explore steps toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Given Kushner’s involvement in this, it seems that Trump is going to try to get Saudi Arabia to drop any concessions to Palestinians as a condition for Israeli normalization, just as he did with the four other Arab states in his first term.
The Associated Press reported that “Saudi Arabia wants U.S. help developing its own civil nuclear program, and the Trump administration says it is ‘very excited’ at the prospect”.
The Saudi Arabian business outlet “Arabian Post” reported that “President Donald Trump announced plans to visit Saudi Arabia within the next six weeks to finalize an agreement for the kingdom to invest $1 trillion in the U.S. economy over the next four years, including substantial purchases of military equipment.”
The outlet noted that this deal would “bolster the (Saudi) kingdom’s global economic footprint and strengthen bilateral relations with key allies” and “modernize its armed forces amid regional security challenges”.
It seems very likely that part of Trump’s deal with Saudi Arabia will include him agreeing to work with Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program and agreeing to the massive arms sale if Saudi Arabia, in exchange, normalizes relations with Israel without any Palestinian concessions.
This will allow Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia while continuing its ethnic cleansing plan in the West Bank and Gaza, Netanyahu’s stated “lynchpin” of the plan from the beginning.
The New York Post reported that Trump teased “a very big announcement”, “not about trade”, which will “be a truly earth-shattering development” ahead of his Middle East trip.
This could easily be Saudi Arabia signing onto the Abraham Accords with Israel.
Trump Not Visiting Israel Will Help Netanyahu.
While some have portrayed Trump snubbing Netanyahu in his Middle East visit as a setback to Bibi, it will actually aid in carrying out his ethnic cleansing plan in Gaza.
Axios recently reported :
Israel has set President Trump's visit to the Middle East next week as a deadline for a new hostage and ceasefire deal, with a massive ground operation to commence if no deal is reached, Israeli officials say.
The report went on to note “Israel's Security Cabinet approved a plan Sunday night to gradually reoccupy all of Gaza and hold it indefinitely if no deal is reached by May 15” and that “plans for the operation call for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to flatten any buildings that remain standing and displace virtually the entire population of 2 million people to a single ‘humanitarian area.’”
The report went on to say, “The alternative to remaining in the humanitarian zone is for Palestinians to leave the enclave ‘voluntarily’ for other countries ‘in line with President Trump's vision for Gaza,’ an Israeli official said.”
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has admitted that this plan is intended to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
Smotrich told a group of West Bank settlers, “The Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south. They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”
He also said the annexation of the West Bank “will happen this term”.
Note that Israel set this plan on the condition of a “deadline” if Trump’s visit to the Middle East did not secure “a new hostage and ceasefire deal”.
Since Trump is not even going to visit Israel at all during his visit, it means there is zero chance of a ceasefire or hostage deal happening, and therefore will allow Israel to enact their ethnic cleansing plan they have wanted since the beginning.
Don’t Fall For It Again.
Many are understandably hopeful that Trump actually will turn on Netanyahu and end the slaughter in Gaza and the Israeli control over American foreign policy in the Middle East, but the facts show that, as he has always done, Trump will continue Israel’s bidding.
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Always remember - Gaza is US genocide
Very good analysis... makes sense in the ever increasing insanity.