There is always more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye

Photo: AP Images

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very US president since the June 1967 Six Day War has invested effort and prestige in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, all of them believing they have the magic potion. They all leave the office with more disappointments than accomplishments.

While some agreements exist on paper, such as the Camp David Accords and the Abraham Accords, Egypt violates Camp David daily. The Abraham Accords are essentially hollow, with no new entrants in over five years.

Presidential intervention in the Middle East sets the stage for this week’s meetings between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump. After two years of nonstop warfare, the region’s challenges are broader than ever, and prospects for resolving them look bleak.

Because we went to press before the first Trump-Netanyahu encounter, our understanding of progress will evolve as the week unfolds. It’s important to remember that public statements by Trump and Netanyahu may differ significantly from what gets implemented, especially since other players will clamor for a say.

These players include: Turkey and Saudi Arabia, watching closely to see whether Trump will advance his proposed sale of F-35s to them despite Israel’s objections; Iran and the Houthis, to see whether Bibi and Trump will act forcefully to halt Iran’s ballistic missile buildup; Qatar, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority, to see whether Trump launches the next phase of his 20-point Gaza plan; and Syria and Lebanon, waiting to see whether Israel reduces its military pressure to give their shaky governments breathing room to consolidate their rule, or hunkers down for a winter of conflict.

The pre-meeting media spin from reporters covering the Netanyahu beat was typical: Watch how Trump pressures Bibi and where Bibi caves or bends. That factor will be there, but it’s one-dimensional.

Trump will meet Netanyahu at a time when Bibi has adopted a more assertive, proactive foreign policy. As Democrats grow increasingly critical of Israel and more Republicans view the alliance as a burden, Israel has internalized the need to build new regional ties and address its growing defense needs without outside help.

Last week, Netanyahu used his address to the newest class of Israel Air Force graduates to announce that Israel will spend an additional NIS 350 billion ($110 billion) over ten years to build an independent arms industry. Israel isn’t asking the US to foot the bill.

“I don’t know if a country can be completely independent, but we will strive to ensure our arms are produced as much as possible in Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Earlier in the week, Netanyahu hosted the tenth trilateral summit with allies Greece and Cyprus — all of which face threats from Turkey — to discuss a joint rapid-reaction force to protect critical regional infrastructure against Turkish expansionism. The message for Trump is clear.

“It cannot be long before the United States notices that Turkey is at odds with American allies and supportive of American adversaries like Maduro’s Venezuela, as well as of the hostile Muslim Brotherhood ideology,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Finally, Netanyahu recognized the Muslim Republic of Somaliland, strategically located across the Gulf of Aden south of the area of Yemen under Houthi control. Somaliland has established democratic institutions since its 1991 breakaway from Somalia, but has failed to secure international support. The US has avoided recognizing Somaliland for fear of antagonizing Arab and African allies who oppose it, including Turkey, which has several hundred commandos and special forces stationed in Somalia.

There is always more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. After this week’s meetings, we may learn more about which actions Netanyahu coordinated in advance with Trump and which are intended to signal Israel’s intention to act as a self-reliant, proactive partner rather than waiting for American direction and approval.

Either way, we know Trump’s preference for strong, independent allies that don’t require constant US oversight or intervention. Both the US and Israel will benefit from a more mature, balanced partnership in which each country pursues its objectives while supporting each other’s broader strategic goal.

The Opposition Has Bibi’s Back

In a poll released the morning Netanyahu left for the US, pollster Shlomo Filber (Direct Polls) reported that 78% of Jewish Israelis who identify as opponents of Bibi and his coalition say Netanyahu must insist on the return of the last hostage before advancing to phase two of Trump’s plan for Gaza; 83% reject any Turkish soldiers to help patrol Gaza, while 67% oppose Gaza reconstruction until Hamas is disarmed.

The Return of the Jewish Question

Blaming America’s latest outbreak of political anti-Semitism on Israel risks ignoring the problem’s deeper, more troubling roots.

David Azerrad, an assistant professor at Hillsdale College in Washington, reflected on those roots after reviewing the syllabus for a course he teaches on American progressivism and liberalism and calculating that 25% of the authors on his list are prominent Jews from the past 150 years.

In his recent essay, “The Return of the Jewish Question,” for Compact, an online magazine seeking to identify a new political center, Azerrad argues that far-right figures like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens twist this overrepresentation of Jews on the political left to fuel the narrative that Jews are responsible for every left-wing cause and decadent social movement, from Marxism to open borders, feminism, and lenient crime policies, and that without Jewish influence, the country would be thriving, not decaying.

Azerrad labels this “an affront to the American spirit of self-reliance and accountability.”

“We Americans and Westerners are the ones who squandered our inheritance, defiled our countries, and replaced our populations,” Azerrad writes. Scapegoating Jews means not having to admit any fault or accept responsibility for “the Herculean task of revitalizing the dying nations of the West.”

If educators, community leaders, and influencers took Azerrad’s points to heart, it could spark honest, thoughtful debate that addresses the real root causes of problems, rather than relying on conspiracy theories or blaming minorities.

De Santis Deflates AI

Florida governor and former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis doesn’t see eye-to-eye with AI. Politico quoted DeSantis telling a Florida audience that we must reject the idea that AI will somehow supplant humans “with every fiber of our being.”

“We as individual human beings are the ones that G-d endowed with certain inalienable rights. That’s what our country was founded upon — machines or computers were not endowed with this.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1093)