America’s secretary of war presented Israel as the model for the very partnership the United States now seeks to build

1.

The Netanyahus are not going to give up this coming weekend in Florida. It’s not just any weekend, it’s the close of the civil year, set to be sealed with a meeting of personalities at President Trump’s private estate.

It was written here once that more than Netanyahu kept Shabbos in Eretz Yisrael, Shabbos kept Netanyahu — arranging his overseas trips in a way that spared him complications. If Netanyahu’s vision comes to fruition, the civil New Year, too, will “do the job” for him: a journey free of hostile elements, as the plan is that no journalists will by flying on the Prime Minister’s Wing of Zion plane.

Bibi, ascended the Knesset podium last week and struck out at the opposition and the Israeli media as one bloc, and in closed-door conversations is conveying a sense of having been wronged. The headlines and commentary pieces have painted Trump as one who reordered priorities. The Qatari connection — with an endless flow of cash, familiar to Netanyahu from the days of suitcases being ferried into Gaza — is interpreted as a relationship Trump prefers over the Israeli one. As final proof, commentators point to the sidelining of Tony Blair, a friend of Israel, from the designated role of overseeing Gaza’s rehabilitation and Hamas’s disarmament.

Netanyahu waves this away with a flick of the hand, urging skeptics to wait for the next meeting with Trump, which has become something of a steady quarterly appointment since the president’s election to a second term. When it comes to the complex relationship with Washington, Netanyahu suggests listening closely to the voices emerging from the administration. In Trump’s world, there is no statement that does not already align with the policy of the big boss.

“Partnership, not dependency” — the new American security doctrine articulated by Defense-turned-War-Secretary Pete Hegseth — has been warmly embraced here in Israel as an answer to those accusing Netanyahu of losing Israel’s primacy as America’s preferred partner in the Middle East, supposedly in favor of Qatar.

A source seated in the inner cabinet advised me this week not to succumb to panic, and not to be taken captive by the interpretive columns of what he termed agenda-driven media — in Israel and overseas alike — that reads every achievement as another Netanyahu failure.

America’s secretary of war presented Israel as the model for the very partnership the United States now seeks to build: no more American soldiers stationed on European bases as a protective umbrella for states projecting weakness. From here on, the US will assist countries that help themselves — those capable of using American military resources to conduct their own campaigns.

“I’m not impressed by the consideration shown to Qatar, because the US has always had interests of its own,” the Israeli source explained. “At the level of results, this is an administration that is not turning its back on us and that stands by Israel’s security needs. You can’t say we see eye to eye on everything, but the eye is trained on the same target.

“What the US is presenting today is a new security doctrine shaped in the shadow of the twelve-day war with Iran and the shattering of the Iranian axis. The administration now speaks of allies who must invest in themselves, in their military budgets — something Israel is doing in broad strokes. And these are not just words. The Trump administration has proven in action that, unlike the Obama doctrine, today’s America values Israel’s strength, not its weakness. And to a country that knows how to wage its own war, it is willing to provide assistance — even direct strikes — something we have not seen in the Middle East since the American invasion of Iraq.”

2.

“Give us the tools,” Netanyahu declared in his address to Congress, invoking Winston Churchill’s famous plea on the eve of America’s entry into World War II. The tools were given. And in that same, timeworn model, the United States ultimately intervened bazman hazeh, but in contrast to those days, it concluded the campaign swiftly, with zero American casualties.

Netanyahu views himself as directly and indirectly responsible for the two central achievements cited by America’s secretary of war: the operation in Iran and clearing the Persian Gulf of the pirate threat. In his recent rounds of English-language podcast interviews, Bibi stressed time and again that today’s America wants a strong Israel, because it’s in America’s interest.

In his latest speech, Netanyahu mentioned two additional international leaders with whom he maintains close ties: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both figures — especially the latter — are at the heart of a complex relationship with Trump, who is seeking to peel them away from the Chinese axis.

Trump’s desire to avoid unnecessary confrontations in the Middle East, and certainly to steer clear of avoidable skirmishes that could drag the American military in against its will, does not stem solely from an aspiration to secure a Nobel Prize in the next round. As a president with a business-oriented mindset, Trump prefers to concentrate resources on the global economic campaign against China, while neutralizing harmful alignments between Beijing, Moscow, and New Delhi. Bibi sees his long-standing personal relationships with the Russian and Indian leaders as an Israeli asset that can be leveraged for American needs as well.

Facing the rising forces within the MAGA movement, there is some consolation in Israel in the fact that approximately 74 percent of Republican voters support greater US involvement in foreign policy, according to a survey published in the US last week. Netanyahu is careful not to stumble into a confrontation with Trump, who is eager to advance phase two in Gaza even without the return of the last hostage. In the winter storm that has not spared Gaza’s shores, Bibi has managed to walk between the drops — at least so far.

Amidst troubling signals from Lebanon — where the IDF has detected Hezbollah’s slow return to activity even south of the Litani, some five kilometers from Metula — and in the face of Iran’s growing ballistic buildup, the understandings Netanyahu intends to bring back from Florida are far broader than the narrow coastal strip of Gaza.

The dismantling of Hamas and Hezbollah as a single package deal, alongside the neutralization of Iran’s ballistic capabilities, are, as Bibi once defined it, “life itself.” Improving relations with Saudi Arabia and Syria would already be a lifestyle bonus, against the backdrop of golf-course lawns at the host venue.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1091)