Did the results of President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates last week surprise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
Since Netanyahu is not in the habit of sharing his true thoughts and reactions with the Israeli public, and since it is not at all clear whether he shares them with members of his government (except perhaps for Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer), we do not know what his expectations were last Tuesday, when the visit began, and how he felt when it ended.
What actually occurred? Trump was received with great pomp and flattery during his visit, the main goal of which was, quite obviously, to attain vast economic benefits. These are worth hundreds of billions of dollars for the United States in arms and technologies sales, and astronomical sums of investment by the three Gulf states in America.
Another goal was the change in balance of power in the Middle East, to the benefit of the three Gulf states and Turkey. In addition, Iran, and Syria under its new transition president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (a former member of the jihadist al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda) were offered an opportunity to merge into the new Middle East order, by means of agreements with the US, which has promised to remove all economic sanctions on Iran and Syria if they will agree to play ball.
We do not know how much of all this was known to Netanyahu in advance. Apparently, Israel was in no way involved in the planning of this visit; in many respects, its interests and concerns were not even taken into account.
Whether or not Trump had the deliberate intention of replacing Israel as Washington’s main ally and confidant in the Middle East with a new team, that was the feeling conveyed from last week’s extravagant fanfare.
Trump administration's generous offer to Saudi Arabia
The generous offer of advanced American arms, including fifth-generation F-35 stealth planes, which Trump made to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was undoubtedly an unpleasant shock to Netanyahu.
Since 1968, during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, the United States has maintained a formal policy of maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge over the armed forces of its neighbors – friends and foes alike. Until very recently, this included the refusal to sell F-35 planes (which Israel introduced into its air force in 2017) to Saudi Arabia.
Other new, worrisome developments for Israel resulted from Trump’s Middle Eastern visit. These include the US offer to remove economic sanctions from Iran and Syria; no longer conditioning the upgrading of US-Saudi relations on Saudi Arabia normalizing its relations with Israel; enabling Saudi Arabia to develop a civilian nuclear capability; and open, direct contacts with the new Syrian leader (whom Trump described as a very attractive man) before any positive changes have been made in Syria.
IT IS NO secret that the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu is not as close and warm as it was during Trump’s first term as president. Netanyahu’s second visit to Washington since Trump’s return to the presidency, at the beginning of April, in which he was informed about direct talks between the US and Iran on a new nuclear agreement, was one of the first indications of this development.
The release of hostage Edan Alexander from Hamas captivity, through direct contacts between the president’s team and Hamas, without Israeli involvement or prior approval, was another indication.
It is said that Trump is disappointed with Netanyahu for refusing to stop the fighting in the Gaza Strip, as the condition set by Hamas for the freeing of all remaining 58 hostages, of whom only 20 are believed to still be alive. In fact, Netanyahu is in the process of intensifying the fighting, with the goal of occupying the whole, or part of the Strip, toward achieving a total victory over Hamas.
Trump went on record last week, saying that he wants to end the brutal war in the Gaza Strip. He warned that starvation in Gaza will spread unless Israel resumes allowing foreign humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, which it had stopped in March.
However, while Trump appears to be calling for an end to the fighting, last week he also resumed speaking about plans for the US taking over the Gaza Strip, and establishing a “freedom zone” there.
What he means by a freedom zone is not clear. However, the last time Trump spoke of the US taking control over the Gaza Strip, he implied that the US would not use military force to achieve this, but that Israel would hand the territory over to the US. And how is Israel to do this without conquering the Gaza Strip first?
What has happened to Trump’s plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a Riviera on the eastern Mediterranean? And what about the idea of a voluntary transfer of two million inhabitants of Gaza to other countries?
Last Friday, NBC News reported that the US administration was investigating the possibility of resettling one million Gazans in Libya in return for the US releasing billions of dollars of Libyan funds, which it had frozen more than a decade ago.
ALL THESE ideas might be nothing more than pie in the sky, but it is known that there are members in Israel’s current government who take them seriously. How seriously does Netanyahu himself take them? We do not know.
Neither do we know how he views the more serious propositions of establishing an Israeli military administration in the Gaza Strip, or establishing some form of largely non-Palestinian Arab administration, with Israel playing a defensive military role on its outskirts.
It is unlikely that any of these ideas were raised last week during Trump’s visit to the three Gulf states, though sooner or later they are bound to be raised.
In the meantime, there have been reports on progress having been made in Doha on a partial hostage-for-ceasefire deal, based on Witkoff’s outline. The deal includes the immediate return of 10 live hostages in return for an approximately two-month ceasefire. As a new week begins, we have very little concrete information on the issue. What else is new?
The writer has written numerous journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994-2010, she worked in the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.