National Review Online
Thursday, February 06, 2025
This week, we got an early glimpse of how President Trump
will approach the U.S. relationship with Israel during his second term. Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first foreign leader to visit the White
House since the start of the new administration, which in itself carried great
symbolic significance. But Trump followed up the symbolism with substantive
moves that conveyed the common interests of the two allies.
On Tuesday, before welcoming Netanyahu, Trump signed an
executive order that brought back his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting
Iran. During his first term, he imposed crippling sanctions on the Islamist
regime, which starved the mullahs of resources, making it harder for them to
finance terrorist proxies led by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration shifted to a
policy of minimum pressure, unraveling carefully deployed sanctions that
provided a lifeline to Iran in hopes of reviving Barack Obama’s disastrous
nuclear deal. The result was more aggression from Iran and its terrorist
network.
Trump also made clear that he would never permit Iran to
obtain nuclear weapons. During the campaign, he said he supported Israeli
military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. He did not reiterate that position
this week, but did not rule it out, either. In a Truth Social post, he
indicated that he was open to negotiating a deal with Iran that involved real
verification of its nuclear program. “Reports that the United States, working
in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY
EXAGGERATED,” he wrote. But there are plenty of military actions that fall
short of completely leveling the country.
In addition to Iran, Trump signed an order saying that
the U.S. would no longer participate in the United Nations Human Rights Council
and that it would pull funding from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), noting that they have abandoned
the founding mission of the U.N. “and instead act contrary to the interests of
the United States while attacking our allies and propagating anti-Semitism.”
UNRWA was specifically cited for the involvement of some employees in the
October 7 massacres.
While it is still unclear whether Trump will exert
pressure on Netanyahu to agree to future phases of the cease-fire deal with
Hamas that could eventually bring home all the hostages and end the war, at
least in a joint press conference with Netanyahu, Trump was noncommittal.
Netanyahu outlined three Israeli goals for any final deal: “destroy Hamas’s
military and governing capabilities, secure the release of all of our hostages,
and ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.” Trump did nothing to
undercut him and said he was unsure if future phases of the deal would get
secured.
The biggest news Trump dropped was his two-part vision
for post-war Gaza. He reiterated that he supports relocating the roughly 2
million Gazans to new communities in other countries with funds and land to be
provided by wealthy nations. Then, he said the U.S. would claim ownership of
Gaza and partake in a massive construction project to clear out the debris and
rebuild the decimated strip of coastal land into “the Riviera of the Middle
East” — deploying U.S. troops there, if necessary.
To put it plainly, the plan is not going to happen. While
some might be open to leaving for greener pastures, plenty of Palestinians view
Gaza as their home, and those supportive of terrorism aren’t ready to abandon
the dream of using it as a base to destroy Israel. Even if there were a willing
population, other regional leaders, with their own stability concerns, will
have no interest in importing a large underclass population with plenty of
terrorists among them. Jordan’s King Abdullah II (whose father came dangerously
close to being overthrown by relocated Palestinian forces in 1970-71) is about
as eager to welcome a flood of Gazan exiles as Trump is to shelter Venezuelan
migrant gang members at Mar-a-Lago.
Even if part one of this vision were to somehow
materialize, there would be little appetite to risk American blood and treasure
to undertake a massive rebuilding effort in one of the most volatile stretches
of land in the world.
Trump’s supporters portrayed the announcement as an
example of Trump thinking outside the box and rejecting failed dogmas of the
past, such as the chimeric “two-state solution.” The optimists’ case would be
that Trump is simply stirring up the pot, freaking out all the power players in
the Middle East, to open up a range of possibilities that may have otherwise
been out of reach.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu had an additional meeting with
Pete Hegseth, in which the newly sworn-in secretary of defense thanked Israel
for eliminating Hezbollah leaders, particularly one who played a role in the
1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut. He also noted that Trump had lifted the
pause on certain weapons that had been put in place under Joe Biden and said
that the administration was committed to keep supplying them.
During the Biden administration, when Netanyahu visited,
he was subjected to constant lectures and threats over the Israeli conduct of
its existential war. The prime minister will no doubt be resting a lot easier
on his flight home this time.
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