Where Does Israel Fit into Donald Trump’s Middle East Vision?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Winnipeg] Jewish Post

Donald Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East will lead, the U.S. president promised, to a region where interest has replaced ideology.  

“A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence.”

Nice words, but behind them is a framework that is consistent with Trump’ approach to the region during his first term, when he crafted the Abraham Accords. He isn’t going to let its age-old animosities get in the way of business. The result is the rise of advisers who champion “realism and restraint,” by which they mean no more misbegotten wars in the Middle East and Central Asia leading to disasters such as the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires.

Where does this leave Israel? Perturbed. Trump is moving ahead on a whole range of regional issues without including Israel and without heeding Israeli concerns in an expanding number of agreements. Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — yet did not stop in Israel.

It also did not go unnoticed that the last remaining American hostage held by Hamas, Eden Alexander, was released from captivity in a deal brokered by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was apparently completely bypassed. Witkoff negotiated directly with Hamas through a secret backchannel. Indeed, he even expressed his “disappointment” that America “wants to return the hostages, but Israel is not ready to end the war.”

Now, in a dramatic turn of events, Trump is establishing friendly relations with the new Syrian president, whom he met face-to-face in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman al-Saud looking on. Earlier this year, it was reported that Israel had lobbied Washington to keep its sanctions on Syria, but to no avail. 

Trump lifted all sanctions on a Syrian leadership that Israel understandably regards as a terrorist regime. After all, its new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is a former jihadi whose group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was until 2016 al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.  Twenty years ago al-Sharaa was languishing in an American military prison in Baghdad, held on suspicion of terrorism on behalf of the Islamic State.

And while Trump has forged a truce with Yemen’s Houthis, in which they promised to no longer attack international shipping in the Red Sea, it seems they will still be able to strike Israel with missiles and drones. The deal served to shield American ships from attacks but said nary a word about Israel’s security. Indeed, it was announced two days after the Houthis had launched a missile that struck Ben Gurion Airport, prompting foreign airlines to flee.

Pro-Israel Republicans and hawkish foreign policy experts worry that Trump’s dealmaking with oil-rich Gulf nations, with trade deals in the hundreds of billions of dollars, puts Israel at a diplomatic disadvantage.

“His approach is obviously completely transactional. If he has a view about U.S. national interest, that view revolves around financial and commercial interests, and that diminishes the value of the alliance with Israel, which is not primarily financial and commercial,” contended Elliott Abrams, a former longtime Republican official who served as Iran envoy in Trump’s first term. The Israel relationship is “based on values. It’s based on military cooperation.”

Financially, “Israel can’t compete with these other states,” remarked David Schenker, who headed the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the first Trump administration. Rather than financial investments, he said, Israel could make concessions to what Trump wants to see in the region. If it doesn’t adapt, Israel could run the risk of being sidelined in Washington.

Trump did make it clear that he remains interested in mediating a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, even as he announced new arms sales to Riyadh and heightened defence cooperation that many expected to be connected to a normalization deal. 

Trump’s various actions, including the deal with the Houthis that ended their of attacks on shipping vessels, but not on Israel; his direct negotiations with Hamas over the release of Edan Alexander; the legitimacy he granted Syria’s new president, and his skipping of Israel as a stop on his Middle East tour, all leave Israel feeling it is on the sidelines during this critical time.

Knowing all this, Israel needs to begin the move towards ending its reliance on U.S. military aid, Netanyahu said in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee May 11.

“We receive close to $4 billion for arms. I think we will have to wean ourselves off of American security aid, just as we weaned ourselves off of American economic aid,” Netanyahu told them. He added that, just as stopping economic aid helped spur economic growth in Israel, stopping military aid could help the defence sector.

The remark was made in the context of talks with the U.S. about the next 10-year aid package for Israel.  Things are moving fast in the Middle East.

 

Trump’s Whirlwind Diplomatic Initiatives

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

U.S. President Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and he may get it. His recent Middle East trip is his follow-up to the Abraham Accords, which he negotiated during his first term.

He has also attempted to reduce tensions in South Asia, in the wake of the recent India-Pakistan conflict. And he continues his efforts to bring an end to the Ukraine war and for a nuclear deal with Iran. He’d like to end the Gaza war as well.

In his diplomatic efforts he has been noticeably evenhanded, to the point where the leaders of some American friends have felt slighted. Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Volodymyr Zelensky are all somewhat disappointed – Trump is perhaps too impartial for their taste.

But we shouldn’t be surprised. To make deals, Trump’s specialty, you must be seen as an honest broker by both sides. Trump is not the prime minister of India or Israel, nor the president of Ukraine. He is the president of the United States, and his job, first and foremost, is to make the world a safer place for America, by putting out fires that may otherwise get out of control and involve the U.S. in further wars. After the Afghanistan and Iraq debacles, it’s the last thing Americans want.

In early May, Trump served as a go-between as he announced a cease-fire after the most expansive military conflict in decades between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed powers. But India wasn’t pleased. In announcing the cease-fire, the U.S. president made no mention of how the confrontation had started with a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The Indian government refused to publicly acknowledge the American role, insisting that their deal had been reached directly with Pakistan. Some right-wing politicians in Prime Minister Modi’s party even described Trump’s comments as a betrayal.

Delhi was concerned that the Indian public might perceive this as their country having halted the confrontation under outside pressure before achieving victory against a weaker adversary.

As for the Ukraine war, “Nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One May 15. And Israel, too, is perturbed, given Trump’s embrace of the new leadership in Syria.

Even before he left on his Middle East tour, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Trump declared a cease fire with Yemen’s rebel Houthis, who had been attacking shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis had shot down several American drones and continued to fire at naval ships in the Red Sea, including an American aircraft carrier. But having spent more than one billion dollars of escalating operations against the Iran-backed group, the high costs led Trump to pull the plug.

“We hit them very hard and they had a great ability to withstand punishment,” Trump admitted.” Still, the Houthis agreed to stop their attacks.

In Riyadh on May 13, Trump criticized “Western intervention” in the Middle East. He mocked the neocons, hawks and so-called “nation builders,” who preached democracy and human rights through occupations and violence. They “wrecked far more nations than they built,” he declared, as they meddled “in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves” and “spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, and so many other cities.”

Trump met with the new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh May14, a day after announcing the lifting of all U.S. sanctions on Damascus. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud sat next to them. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined them by telephone. The meeting, the first between U.S. and Syrian leaders in 25 years, was hailed by Erdogan as “historic.”

Twenty years ago al-Sharaa was languishing in an American military prison in Baghdad, held on suspicion of terrorism on behalf of the Islamic State. Now he was shaking hands with President Trump.

This is part of al-Sharaa’s desire to upgrade Syria’s relations with Saudi Arabia and it fits into a long-term American and Saudi strategy to isolate Iran, so Trump is pushing al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords. If the president’s decision to engage with the Syrian regime succeeds, the benefits to the United States and the West would be immense.

Trump also told bin Salman that “you’ll be greatly honouring me by recognizing Israel” and signing on to the Abraham Accords. “It’s my fervent hope, wish and even my dream,” he stated.

Behind all of Trump’s praise of the Gulf’s leadership for the region’s achievements, and denigration of failed Western nation-building projects, were his administration’s plans for the Middle East – including the withdrawal of American troops in northeast Syria.

We tend to think of Trump as a hard-nosed realist, a transactional deal maker. And he did announce hundreds of billions of dollars in business deals. Yet he also has an idealistic, even utopian, side to him. After all, who but Trump could ask not only the Saudi crown prince, but also Syria’s new ruler, a former jihadi whose group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was until 2016 al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, to recognize Israel?

While that request remains highly unlikely to be granted by the latter, the contours of the Middle East are rapidly changing, with Trump playing no small part. The president is turning over tables, and we don’t know where the dishes will fall.