Israeli officials were blindsided on Tuesday as they heard the news reports of U.S. President Donald Trump’s agreement with Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis). The deal, which will end the American bombing of Yemen in exchange for Ansar Allah ceasing its attacks on American ships in the Red Sea, was brokered by Oman completely without Israel’s knowledge.
It was a clear message that Israel’s position in Washington is not what Benjamin Netanyahu had hoped it would be when he backed Trump’s return against Joe Biden in 2024. Though we should be careful not to make more of this than it is, it is very likely that quite a few people in the Knesset and the Prime Minister’s Office are missing the days of Genocide Joe Biden.
Trump isn’t abandoning Israel
Earlier this week, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren repeated a common Israeli mantra. “In times of crisis, we can receive foreign financial aid and reinforcement of our anti-missile defense,” Oren wrote. “But such measures cannot substitute for Israel defending itself, by itself, against existential dangers.”
This has been a frequent talking point for Israel and its American supporters, usually invoked when they are describing the level of massive military aid the U.S. should, in their view, be giving to Israel. Trump is now putting that standard into practice.
The sycophantic Senate Republican Lindsey Graham seemed to be one of the few members of Congress from either party who understood this.
“I think this is a step in the right direction. I appreciate it. I’m hopeful Iran understands that Iran and the Houthis are the same in our eyes. As to Israel, they don’t need to take any more of this shit from the Houthis or Iran,” Graham said.
While many understood that Trump had taken a step in pursuit of U.S. priorities, at least as he sees them, Graham stood out in understanding that Trump was also taking his now-familiar indifference to what other countries do, allies or enemies, as long as it doesn’t interfere with his own ambitions.
Graham gets that Trump was never bombing Yemen for Israel, but to stop Ansar Allah’s attacks in the Red Sea which were interfering with shipping. Given the effects of his tariffs, which are only just beginning to be felt, Trump wanted to mitigate the significant bump in shipping costs the Ansar Allah attacks had been causing.
Trump is now also concerned about the cost of the bombing. That is reflected less in terms of the financial cost—which is well in excess of a billion dollars just in the past six weeks—than in the supply of munitions. The American forces have dropped more than 2000 bombs on Yemen since Trump escalated the devastating attacks. That many bombs need to be replenished. The carriers and other American military assets that Trump has diverted to the region, both to carry out attacks on Yemen and to threaten Iran, also have to come from somewhere.
American military commanders are concerned that, to maintain these actions, the military will have to divert more resources from the Asian-Pacific region. For the U.S. military, being prepared for what they believe is an upcoming confrontation with China is far more important than Yemen or the imaginary threat of a nuclear Iran.
All of this and more went into the decision to strike a deal with Ansar Allah. But, while many have focused on the fact that the deal does not provide any relief for Israel from attacks from Yemen, most of them overlook the fact that it doesn’t restrain Israel in any way from continuing its attacks either.
Congressional criticism lighter than expected
The recent Israeli attacks, particularly on the Sana’a Airport, have been just as devastating as the American ones. Graham gets that, as do many of Israel’s more dedicated supporters. That’s why the criticism of Trump has been relatively light, though certainly there has been some.
Democrats have lashed out at Trump, but have also stopped short of accusing him of “abandoning” Israel. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), for example, linked Ansar Allah to Iran, although it has long been clear that, while Iran supports the Yemeni group, they do not act according to Tehran’s orders.
Other Democrats criticized the haphazard way in which the agreement was announced, where, apparently, some elements of Ansar Allah were not yet aware of it when asked, leading to some confusion.
Jonathan Schanzer of the far-right and extremist think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies noted the real concern pro-Israel forces have. Schanzer noted that Israel is free to attack Yemen and that, while it is “inconvenient” for Israeli planes to have to fly to Yemen while American forces are stationed in the area, they are quite capable of doing it themselves.
Schanzer, like most of Israel’s supporters, is concerned about the implications for the ongoing negotiations with Iran. If Trump reaches an agreement with Tehran on the nuclear issue that Israel objects to, this agreement is a signal that Israel will not have veto power over it, as it would have with Biden.
Indeed, Israel’s ability to influence the outcome of those talks is considerably less than it was when Barack Obama negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA. Unlike Obama, who had to face Republican control of both the House and Senate at the time, Trump’s party controls both houses of Congress. Moreover, Obama faced considerable opposition from within his own party, and a number of key senators at the time voted against the agreement, which, though not technically a treaty, was submitted to the Senate for approval.
Trump is unlikely to submit his agreement to such a process, and if he does, no Republican will dare oppose it. That severely curtails Israel’s ability to undermine the agreement as it nearly did in 2015.
Regional concerns
However, Trump’s decision to reach this agreement with Ansar Allah was influenced by an ally: Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is reaffirming its primacy in Washington, as it did in Trump’s first term, but this time, it is working to establish itself as the top Middle Eastern political influencer, supplanting Israel and keeping the United Arab Emirates in a secondary position.
Trump will visit the Middle East next week, a trip that pointedly does not include Israel. Leading up to the trip, the Saudis have been pressing Trump to stop the attacks on Yemen. According to several U.S. officials, the Saudi request was a major reason Trump worked with Oman to reach this agreement with Ansar Allah.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that the Trump administration had de-linked talks about a civilian nuclear program for Saudi Arabia from a normalization deal with Israel. This represents another significant step for Saudi Arabia and another setback for Israel.
An agreement with Saudi Arabia remains highly coveted in Israel. The genocide in Gaza has made such an agreement impossible for the time being, but the Netanyahu government and the administration of Joe Biden both worked to keep the idea alive. Indeed, the Saudis seemed willing to find a way to make it work with only the shallowest token of a path to a Palestinian state at times, and, even by the end of Biden’s term, were clear about their willingness to normalize relations with Israel if it committed to a Palestinian state.
The reason the Saudis were so flexible was that they wanted two things from Washington: a much more robust defense agreement and support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program. Now they have half of what they want without having to walk the minefield of an agreement with Israel.
What is most remarkable about this is that Washington does not seem to have extracted any reciprocal price from Riyadh. Trump simply wants to advance the deal with the Saudis—doubtless in ways that will profit him and his family—and appears unmoved by Israeli concerns or desires. It is also likely that he or someone on his team recognizes that the obstacle to a deal with the Saudis is Israel.
Netanyahu should have been careful what he wished for
In many ways, Israel’s place in the Trump administration’s calculations is exactly what some on the Israeli and Zionist far right have been after for years. The annual aid continues to flow and there is no sign that there is any threat to it. The various public and private sector partnerships in research and development of weapons and technology are going strong.
But the United States is looking out for its own interests in the Middle East and is expecting Israel to do the same. While that’s ostensibly what the right in Israel has said it wanted, the truth is this isn’t what they were really after.
They wanted freedom to act, the full financial support of the United States, and its political protection. But they also wanted coordination on regional strategy and intelligence, and for the United States to back their aggression, allowing Israel—which claims to “understand the dangerous neighborhood” in which they live—to essentially chart the strategic course, plotting the strategy for U.S. approval or input.
That kind of arrangement was close to what Netanyahu had during Trump’s first term, but Trump wasn’t very happy with how that relationship ended. With Biden, Israel had nearly everything they wanted, although they felt obligated to restrain their genocidal tactics just slightly, knowing, for instance, that Biden would draw the line at a total blockade of Gaza, as opposed to one that allowed Palestinians there to starve to death a bit more slowly.
So Netanyahu worked to support Trump’s return. Now he can get away with absolutely zero aid going into Gaza because Trump doesn’t care about that. He can strike Iran on his own if he really wants to, although Israel by itself doesn’t have the capacity to accomplish their goals with U.S. involvement. He can commit all the war crimes and demolitions in the West Bank he wants, and has a free hand in Lebanon. Israel’s only real restraint in Syria is the risk of a confrontation with Türkiye, which the United States does not want to see.
But while Trump’s isolationism is often exaggerated, he has shown himself to be driven in foreign policy by his perception of American interests, particularly when they are identical to his personal ones. He doesn’t care one bit about Palestinian lives, and believes that Israel should act on its own, but they should do that with neither help nor hindrance from the U.S. unless there is a mutually beneficial reason.
That’s not what Netanyahu was hoping for, when he worked to reelect a president he thought would be deeply beholden to warmongering Islamophobes and Christian Zionists. Somewhere in his retirement, Genocide Joe is laughing at the folly of the Israeli PM, while the bipartisan American indifference, or even hostility, to Arab lives, especially Palestinian ones, continues to reach new heights.
