Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often tried to paint himself as a close friend of United States President Donald Trump, but the relationship has rarely been as straightforward as the Israeli premier has portrayed it.
And recently, speculation across the Israeli media that the relationship between the two leaders, and by extension, their countries, has begun to unravel is becoming unavoidable.
Some idea of the gap was apparent in Trump’s recent Middle East trip, which saw him visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel, the state that has typically been the US’s closest ally within the region.
Likewise, US negotiations with two of Israel’s fiercest regional opponents, Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have been taking place without any apparent input from Israel, a country that has always regarded itself as central to such matters. Lastly, against a growing chorus of international condemnation over Israel’s actions in Gaza, there was the decision of US Vice President JD Vance to cancel a planned visit to Israel for apparently “logistical” reasons.
Appearing on national television earlier this month, Israeli commentator Dana Fahn Luzon put it succinctly: “Trump is signalling to Netanyahu, ‘Honey, I’ve had enough of you.’”
“We’re seeing a total breakdown of everything that might be of benefit to Israel,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political aide to several senior Israeli political figures, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “America was once our closest ally; now we don’t seem to have a seat at the table. This should be of concern to every single Israeli.”
‘Many Israelis blame Netanyahu for this,” Barak continued. “He always presented Trump as somehow being in his pocket, and it’s pretty clear Trump didn’t like that. Netanyahu crossed a line.”
‘No better friend’
While concern over a potential rift may be growing within Israel, prominent voices in the US administration are stressing the strength of their alliance.
Last Sunday, President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said that, while the US was keen to avert what he called a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, he didn’t think there was “any daylight between President Trump’s position and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position”.
Also doubling down on the US’s commitment to Israel was White House National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt, who dismissed reports that the Trump administration was preparing to “abandon” Israel if it continues with its war on Gaza, telling Israeli media that “Israel has had no better friend in its history than President Trump”.
The Trump administration has also been active in shutting down criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza in public spheres and specifically on US college campuses.
Several international students have also been arrested and deported for their support of Palestine, including Rumeysa Ozturk, whose arrest as she was walking on a street in a Boston suburb for an opinion piece co-authored in a student newspaper was described by Human Rights Watch as “chilling”.
Spatting
Those policies have made it clear that the Trump administration sits firmly in Israel’s corner. And looking back at Trump’s policies in his first presidential term, that is not surprising.
Trump fulfilled many of the Israeli right’s dreams in that term, between 2017 and 2021, including recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite its eastern half being occupied Palestinian territory, recognising the annexation of the Golan Heights, despite it being occupied Syrian territory, and pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.
But those actions are partly to blame for the bumpy relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, with the US president reportedly resentful of what he saw as a lack of gratitude for those pro-Israel policies.
Trump was also furious after Netanyahu congratulated former US President Joe Biden following his 2020 election victory over Trump, which the current president still disputes.
“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi [Benjamin] Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump said in an interview in 2021.
Nevertheless, in the build-up to the 2024 US election, Netanyahu and his allies actively courted candidate Trump, believing him to be the best means of fulfilling their agenda and continuing their war on Gaza, analysts said.
“Netanyahu had really campaigned for Trump before the election, emphasising how bad Biden was,” Yossi Mekelberg, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, said.
“Now they don’t know which way Trump’s going to go because he’s so contractual. He’s all about the win,” Mekelberg added, referring to the series of victories the president claimed during his recent Gulf tour, adding, “but there’s no win in Palestine”.
Across the Israeli press and media, a consensus is taking hold that Trump has simply tired of trying to secure a “win” or an end to the war on Gaza that Netanyahu and his allies on the Israeli hard right have no interest in pursuing.
Israeli Army Radio has even carried reports that Trump has blocked direct contact from Netanyahu over concerns that the Israeli prime minister may be trying to manipulate him.
Quoting an unnamed Israeli official, Yanir Cozin, a reporter with Israeli Army Radio, wrote on X: “There’s nothing Trump hates more than being portrayed as a sucker and someone being played, so he decided to cut off contact.”
“There’s a sense in Israel that Trump’s turned on Netanyahu,” political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said from Tel Aviv. “Supporters of Netanyahu are panicking, as they all previously thought that Trump’s backing was unlimited.”
What now?
A break in relations between Netanyahu and Trump might not mean an automatic break between Israel and the US, Flaschenberg cautioned, with all factions across the Israeli political spectrum speculating on what the future may hold under a realigned relationship with the US.
US financial, military and diplomatic support for Israel has been a bedrock of both countries’ foreign policy for decades, Mekelberg said. Moreover, whatever Trump’s current misgivings about his relationship with Netanyahu, support for Israel, while diminishing, remains hardwired into much of his Republican base, analysts and polls have noted, and particularly among Republican – and Democratic – donors.
“Those opposed to Netanyahu and the war are hoping that the US may now apply a lasting ceasefire,” Flaschenberg said, with reference to Israeli reliance upon US patronage. “That’s not because of any great faith in Trump, but more the extent of their dismay in the current government.”
However, equally present are those on the hard right, such as Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who Mekelberg speculated may also hope to take advantage of whatever direction US policy towards Israel heads in.
“Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and their backers could take advantage of American disinterest, depending upon what shape it takes,” Mekelberg told Al Jazeera. “If the US continues to provide weapons and diplomatic cover in the UN while letting [Israel] get on with it, then that’s their dream,” he said of Smotrich, who has reassured his backers that allowing minimal aid into the besieged enclave did not mean that Israel would stop “destroying everything that’s left of the Gaza Strip”.
However, where Netanyahu may figure in this is uncertain.
Accusations that the Israeli prime minister has become reliant upon the war to sustain the political coalition he needs to remain in office and avoid both a legal reckoning in his corruption trial, as well as a political reckoning over his government’s failures ahead of the October 7, 2023 attack, are both widespread and longstanding.
“I don’t know if Netanyahu can come back from this,” Barak said, still uncertain about whether the prime minister can demonstrate his survival skills once again. “There’s a lot of talk about Netanyahu being at the end of his line. I don’t know. They’ve been saying that for years, and he’s still here. They were saying that when I was his aide, but I can’t see any more magic tricks that are available to him.”
