{"id":118750,"date":"2025-01-29T17:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T15:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=118750"},"modified":"2025-01-28T16:38:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:38:16","slug":"28-05-103","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=118750","title":{"rendered":"Trump Forced Israel to Surrender; Why Isn\u2019t He Receiving the Blame?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Trump Forced Israel to Surrender; Why Isn\u2019t He Receiving the Blame?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Mitchell Bard<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, Sept. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS\/Tom Brenner<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly after the Gaza war began, I reminded<\/a> readers that US presidents \u2014 not Israeli prime ministers \u2014 end Israel\u2019s wars. Predictably, President Joe Biden ended Israel\u2019s war in Lebanon, and President-elect Donald Trump stopped the fighting in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Jewish Democrats welcomed the release of hostages, they couldn\u2019t help but revel in the discomfort of Trump\u2019s Jewish supporters, watching their carefully constructed myth of the \u201cmost pro-Israel president in history\u201d unravel. The leader they idolized as someone who would never pressure Israel forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u2014 known for his staunch resistance to outside influence \u2014 into surrendering. Ironically, Trump achieved what his supporters falsely accused Biden of doing: preventing Israel\u2019s destruction of Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump demanded that a deal be struck before his inauguration or there would be \u201chell to pay.\u201d He never said what kind of deal he supported or what the penalty would be \u2014 but his supporters assumed the message was directed at Hamas. Instead, Israel is paying the price, as it always does, because the US has leverage over the Jews and not their enemies. Anyone with an honest appraisal of Trump knows that he did not care about Netanyahu\u2019s political future or Israel\u2019s for that matter; he wanted to claim the mantle of peacemaker and win a Nobel Prize.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Trump\u2019s supporters didn\u2019t get the message from the hostage deal, he reinforced it by demanding that Israel complete its withdrawal from Lebanon in accordance with the ceasefire agreement. Biden reportedly had considered granting Israel an extension to finish cleaning up and giving the Lebanese army the chance to deploy. Trump, however, clearly doesn\u2019t care any more about the threat to Israel from Hezbollah than the ongoing danger of Hamas if it interferes with his legacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of Trump\u2019s biggest Jewish supporters were in such denial of Trump\u2019s betrayal they tried to blame his negotiator, Steve Witkoff, who forced Netanyahu to show up on Shabbat to meet him to receive the president-elect\u2019s message. Witkoff was touted for being a Jew when he was appointed, but was suspected of freelancing in collaboration with the Biden administration and the Qataris, with whom he has business relations, to strong-arm the prime minister to accept a deal that 24 hours earlier was considered by Netanyahu a threat to Israel\u2019s future. It was preposterous that any Trump minion would act without his approval, and the conspiracy theory collapsed when the president-elect proudly claimed credit for the \u201cEPIC\u201d deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incidentally, some Biden bashers were convinced that the president would take some Obama-like action to undermine Israel as late as his final day in office. Instead, his administration lifted restrictions on weapons that had been held up. The surprises they predicted would occur post-election proved to be steps to help rather than harm Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in their belief that Trump was Israel\u2019s greatest friend, his Jewish supporters shrugged off his antisemitic remarks, his support for white supremacists (some of whom he just pardoned), repeated complaints about Jewish ingratitude for his pro-Israel policies, solicitation of Arab and Muslim Americans when he thought he might need them in Michigan, and more. Now, they must reckon with his duplicity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s track record shows that he cares about Trump \u2014 Israel\u2019s welfare and Jewish interests are secondary to his personal ambitions. It does help Israel that he clearly does not like Palestinians and understands that jihadists are a threat \u2014 first and foremost to the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adding to the hypocrisy, after railing against Qatar\u2019s nefarious actions for more than a year, MAGA Jews have been mostly silent about Trump\u2019s nomination of Pam Bondi to be attorney general. She failed to disclose her work as a lobbyist for Qatar in her official nomination documents. When asked about it in a congressional hearing, Bondi failed to answer why she didn\u2019t mention the job, but said, \u201cI am very proud of the work that I did. It was a short time and I wish that it had been longer, for Qatar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Understanding that currying favor is the prerequisite to any relationship with Trump, Netanyahu went groveling to Mar-a-Lago during the election and bit the bullet on the hostage deal (though he has twisted himself in knots to try to prove he didn\u2019t surrender) in the hope that it would pay dividends later. One supposition is that Netanyahu\u2019s concession will win Trump\u2019s approval for taking military action against Iran. The idea is reinforced by the anti-Iranian remarks made by Trump and his advisers, but may be a miscalculation given the president\u2019s clear objective set out in his inaugural speech in which he took credit for the hostage release: \u201cMy proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.\u201d A war with Iran would directly contradict his aspirations for a Nobel Prize.<\/span><\/p>\n

Showing loyalty to Trump paid immediate dividends on inauguration day, when Trump began dismantling the Biden legacy. Among the blizzard of executive orders and rescissions of Biden\u2019s actions were the lifting of sanctions on Jewish settlers and reinstating restrictions on staff of the International Criminal Court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump also ordered the suspension of US foreign assistance programs for 90 days while they are reviewed for alignment with his policy goals. That has been interpreted as a precursor to cutting aid to the Palestinians and UNRWA. The order does not apply to Israel, and, despite the isolationist slant of the administration and opposition to foreign assistance in general, Trump is not only expected to continue support for Israel but to end the embargo on the transfer of 2,000-pound bombs imposed by Biden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s focus on Saudi-Israeli normalization is yet another example of his peacemaking ambitions. Though Biden laid the groundwork for these discussions, Trump is poised to take full credit for any breakthrough \u2014 a move that could greatly benefit Israel while burnishing his legacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though his Jewish supporters refuse to admit it, Trump\u2019s actions often harmed Israel in his first term \u2014 while also doing a great deal to legitimately earn their praise. The past week is proof that his second term will very likely lead to similar results for Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mitchell Bard is a foreign policy analyst and authority on US-Israel relations who has written and edited 22 books including:<\/em> The Arab Lobby, Death to the Infidels: Radical Islam\u2019s War Against the Jews, and<\/em> After Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Trump Forced Israel to Surrender; Why Isn\u2019t He Receiving the Blame? Mitchell Bard Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, Sept. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS\/Tom Brenner Shortly after the Gaza war began, I reminded readers that US presidents \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118750"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118893,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118750\/revisions\/118893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}