US President Donald Trump’s business trip to the Middle East presents a new strategic reality: The American president has, for now, chosen to sideline Israel and its considerations in his foreign policy.
The renewed war in Gaza has turned the Israeli government into a tangible obstacle to the realization of Trump’s regional plans. The master of mega-deals understands what the Gulf states have been saying for months: Israel’s government has nothing to offer diplomatically.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, having reduced its foreign policy to a willing dependency on Trump, now finds it has no one left to lean on. Its messianic agenda is eroding Jerusalem’s most vital strategic-security asset: its special relationship with the United States.
It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, the Negev Summit was held, in which Israel was leading a multilateral strategic regional initiative, jointly envisioning a shared future with rising regional powers, and even helping the Biden administration improve its ties with the Gulf states. Israel’s shift from strategic asset to liability for the US carries significant implications for its regional standing.
The decline of Israel’s influence over US foreign policy
Despite all the praise for Israeli innovation and defense exports, Jerusalem’s core value in the eyes of the region has always been its special relationship with Washington. The decline in Israel’s influence over US foreign policy reduces its regional value, while the cost of cooperating with Israel under the shadow of the Gaza war keeps climbing.
The American policy shift is clearly expressed in the reallocation of special relations from Israel to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has emerged as the primary hub of US foreign policy in the region – a long-standing partner offering clear returns on investment, of the kind Trump appreciates.
The Saudis are hosting negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, supporting the economies of Egypt and Jordan, serving as a key regulator of oil prices, leading reconstruction planning in Syria and Lebanon, and playing a central role in US-China competition in the region. Above all, Saudi Arabia is the linchpin of Trump’s “Gulf New Deal,” hundreds of billions in trade and defense deals, concluded during this visit.
Riyadh touches on the economic and political interests at the heart of Trump’s administration. In contrast, Israel offers only entanglement in a futile and destructive war.
Normalization with Saudi Arabia has long been seen as a potential game-changer for Israel, arguably the most significant strategic achievement since peace with Egypt. It was certainly meaningful enough to drive Hamas to launch its October 7 attack to derail it. In recent months, normalization has become a pivotal factor in defining Israel’s diplomatic standing, a crossroads between regional decline and resurgence.
Netanyahu’s far-right government missed three real opportunities to advance full or partial normalization with Saudi Arabia: after the 2022 elections, following the October 7 attack as part of Biden’s initiative, and again after Trump’s inauguration. Each time, messianic priorities prevailed over strategic opportunity.
As time passed, the rift deepened, largely due to Israel’s refusal to offer even the slightest assurance it would refrain from extreme steps against the Palestinians.
Sacrificing normalization
The Americans are finally realizing that insisting on normalization with Israel as a condition or incentive could jeopardize the very security-economic alliance they are building with Riyadh. Thus, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is achieving what Hamas failed to do: sacrificing normalization on the altar of annexation ambitions and renewed control over Gaza.
The US pivot toward Saudi Arabia is redefining its regional agenda, often in direct contrast to Israeli policy. The Saudis firmly oppose military confrontation with Iran, support a negotiated approach with the Houthis, seek to develop civilian nuclear capacity, reject expanding conditions for lifting sanctions on Assad’s regime in Syria, and, most critically, oppose the ongoing war in Gaza, which threatens their vision of regional stability.
Riyadh’s conflict-avoidance posture aligns well with Trump, who, despite hawkish rhetoric, has consistently avoided deepening US military engagement in the region. Like the Saudis, he understands that wars, especially those that risk closing the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea shipping routes, are bad for business.
Recent events challenge the foundational assumptions of American foreign policy, including Israel’s role as the United States’ primary strategic partner in the region. Much has also been said about Trump’s willingness to question a cornerstone of the US-Israel relationship: Israel’s qualitative military edge.
On the surface, Trump’s arms deals don’t immediately erode Israel’s technological superiority. But his groundbreaking technology cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia, and especially with Qatar, could gradually diminish Israel’s strategic edge.
Consider Raytheon’s $1 billion deal with a Qatari investor for quantum technology development, or the removal of restrictions and the creation of practical frameworks for AI collaboration. Add to that the recent large-scale offensive weapons sale to Doha, which hosts Hamas’s political leadership and is often seen as a regional rival to Israel. At this moment, such a deal legitimizes Qatar as a state actor and boosts its international standing.
Being bypassed delivers a painful reckoning for Israel’s far-Right, which now understands that Trump is not the messiah they had been longing for. He did not emerge as the historic, pro-annexation leader they had hoped for. Instead of an American hawk, they got a businessman with a limited commitment to the special relationship with Israel, especially when compared to the dedication shown by his much-maligned predecessor.
He allows Israelis to pursue their messianic agenda vis-a-vis the Palestinians uninterrupted, just as long as they don’t interfere with his grand regional plans. In this sense, Trump’s policy is a double blow for Israel: first, because he has chosen to disregard Israeli interests in shaping critical regional developments, and second, because he refuses to save Israel from itself and its own extremists.
And so, Israel is left alone – facing Houthi missiles, a near-nuclear Iran, a senseless war in Gaza with goals even government spokespeople struggle to explain, hostages languishing in tunnels, and a humanitarian catastrophe that threatens to corrode Israel’s moral image. A decade of failed strategic policy under successive Netanyahu governments has reached a new peak of destructive extremism, with Trump now cast as the narrator-in-chief.
The writer is the CEO of Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.