ANALYSIS — Donald Trump sent a clear signal about his Middle East strategy, and his stunning preference for Gaza and its beleaguered population, by selecting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the first world leader to visit the White House during his second term — the latest high-profile move in the U.S. president’s all-gas-no-brakes start.
“I think that we have a combination that’s unbeatable,” Trump said Tuesday of his alliance with Netanyahu as a fireplace roared behind them in the Oval Office, hours before he proposed that the United States could one day “own” Gaza and “develop” the area — although he did not state clearly what presidential authority would allow him to do so.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site,” he said during a joint news conference with Netanyahu. “Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. … Do something different.”
Netanyahu’s visit came as Republicans and Democrats in Congress were still sizing up the new president’s approach to permanently ending the war in Gaza. Trump surely would face resistance from congressional Democrats over a contentious idea he floated before meeting with Netanyahu: that Palestinians should be removed from Gaza and relocated to a new permanent home, a notion that prominent Palestinian and other Arab leaders have also long opposed.
“I don’t know how they could want to stay. It’s a demolition site,” Trump said before his Israeli counterpart arrived at the White House. “If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, with plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure. I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza.”
As for the land itself, Trump, who has floated turning Gaza into a resort area, said the United States and wealthy Arab countries could “do something with it,” adding, “The Gaza thing has not worked.”
Later, seated in the Oval Office alongside a smiling Netanyahu, Trump said he would prefer to “resettle” Gaza residents after a conflict that has seen more than 45,000 Gazans killed and about 90 percent of the territory’s population displaced. Trump said he wants to use “money supplied by other people” to build up to six living areas for Palestinians from Gaza. “Who would want to go back?” the president said.
“You take certain areas and you build really good-quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying,” Trump said, speaking about the territory like no other American leader has. “The same thing is going to happen again. It’s happened over and over again, and it’s going to happen again.”
The two leaders and longtime friends had plenty of reasons for Tuesday’s official visit at the White House, and ample incentives to work closely as long as both are in power. Former President Joe Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu had grown icy, with few direct interactions, largely because of differences over the prime minister’s brutal conduct of the war in Gaza, which he launched after Hamas attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.
Still, the Catholic Biden was a self-declared “Zionist” and his administration supplied Netanyahu’s military with billions in aid to carry out the same bombing campaign to which Biden sometimes publicly objected. And Trump often terms himself the “greatest friend” Israel has ever had in the Oval Office — while also calling for a swift end to the war in Gaza, one that would last far beyond the ongoing ceasefire.
A complicated friendship
Signs of the sensitive nature of the Trump-Netanyahu talks abounded near the White House. Tall black security fencing was already erected Monday around the White House campus, including Netanyahu’s lodging at Blair House. Extra federal law enforcement personnel roamed the area inside, and dump trucks sat just outside at Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest and 17th Street Northwest, an extra layer of blast-absorbing security.
Despite their friendship, analysts and lawmakers have noted that the Trump-Netanyahu relationship will be tested. Trump, after all, slammed Netanyahu in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, saying the prime minister was “not prepared.” But bringing the Israeli leader to Washington so soon in his second term was a clear indication that Trump intends to continue standing by America’s top ally in the volatile region.
A recent Economist/YouGov poll found 32 percent of Americans saying they sympathized more with Israelis, compared with 15 percent who said they were more sympathetic to the Palestinians. (Another 28 percent said their sympathies in the centuries-old conflict were about the same, and 24 percent were unsure.) Trump also knows he has gotten high marks from voters over the years for his support of the Jewish state.
The president and his then-transition team worked alongside the outgoing Biden administration to help broker the ceasefire in Gaza. Netanyahu said Tuesday that Trump brought “great force and powerful leadership” to the ceasefire talks. The Economist/YouGov poll found respondents roughly split over who deserved credit for the truce, with 41 percent giving Trump a “great deal” or “some” credit and 40 percent doing the same for Biden.
Still, some analysts have warned of potential cracks in the Trump-Israeli alliance.
“Netanyahu can neither afford to alienate Trump nor lose his Knesset majority, although his popularity has drastically improved since the days after Oct. 7,” Paul Scham, a professor of Israel studies at the University of Maryland, wrote recently for the Middle East Institute. “Trump is operating hand-in-glove with the Israeli — and American Jewish — right.”
“However, during much of the 14-plus months of the Gaza war, Trump repeatedly called for the conflict to end. These demands carried a clear threat of falling out of Trump’s favor if hostilities continued,” Scham added. “And ultimately, they meant far more than any unleveraged pleas for a cease-fire by Biden. It remains to be seen just how enduring Trump’s push for Gaza peace will be.”
‘Emotional or security attachment’
One thing that could help keep Trump and Netanyahu on the same page: bipartisan support for Israel on Capitol Hill.
“To be sure, on many foreign policy issues, there will not be much daylight between Trump and Republican senators,” Jordan Tama, a professor of foreign policy and global security at American University, wrote for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Republicans are united in favoring the placement of heavy economic pressure on China, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela; strong support for Israel; hardening the border with Mexico; and the removal of many policies designed to address climate change,” Tama said. “Moreover, on some of these issues, such as the application of pressure against China and the continuation of military aid for Israel, many Democrats are on the same page as their Republican colleagues.”
But with Trump, all things typically are transactional; an ally today, with one wrong move or statement, can become persona non grata tomorrow.
“There is little reason to believe Trump has an emotional or security attachment to Israel,” the University of Maryland’s Scham wrote. “He does, however, have a notably strong interest in forging an Arab-Israeli pact that would include firm security and commercial ties between Washington and Riyadh, as well as between Riyadh and Jerusalem.”
But one senior Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees warned last week that too much support for Israel and too little for America’s traditional allies could weaken Washington’s hand in global affairs.
“I’m really, really troubled by the Trump order pausing all foreign assistance. I think when an order goes out, pausing the foreign assistance to other nations except for arms transfers to Israel and Egypt, China and our adversaries hear that and they rub their hands together,” Kaine said during a Jan. 30 Armed Services hearing.
“And because they’re not pausing and they look at us pausing as an opening for them … to build deeper and deeper ties into the hearts and minds of nations that should be our allies,” he added.
As Trump continued Tuesday to show ambivalence toward Israel possibly taking more territory now inhabited by Palestinians in the West Bank, some congressional Democrats are already pushing back on such moves.
“I’m very concerned about the point of view that the nominee expressed regarding Israel’s right to the entire West Bank,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley said during a Foreign Relations Committee meeting, at which he voted against advancing New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “I think there have been such an unleashing of attacks on Palestinian settlements in the West Bank and that this viewpoint perpetuates a cycle of war and hate.”
“And [that] is exactly the wrong approach for us to have an enduring peace and stability that will free the next generation from dealing with the same conflicts we’re dealing with now,” Merkley added.
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