Trump dealt Israel a strategic blow and eroded the gains against Iran

by  by  Danny Zaken

The Israeli leadership had early concerns about a scenario in which US President Donald Trump would "turn" on Israel, and there is no way to downplay the scale of the strategic blow contained in the "shouting call" Trump held Monday night with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and especially in its publication.

There is no dispute that, until now, Trump has been considered the best president the State of Israel has ever had. The excellent relationship with him during his first term brought about the Abraham Accords and led to the cancellation of the terrible nuclear deal advanced by the Obama administration. This was joined by the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the fundamental shift in the American approach to Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights.

His current term has also produced unprecedented achievements: the partial US entry into Operation Rising Lion, the 20-point agreement that led to the release of the hostages, and the current joint campaign against Iran.

This war dragged on for quite some time largely because of Trump himself, who apparently believed it would be much faster. His administration officials did not foresee the Iranian regime's ability to ignore its military defeat and economic collapse, and to keep playing to the limit the remaining cards it held in the Strait of Hormuz and against the Gulf states.

The major successes recorded so far, including setting the Iranian nuclear project back by many years and dealing a severe blow to its missile systems, weapons industries and economy, are now under a large question mark. Still, even if sanctions are lifted, Iran will need many long years to recover, assuming it succeeds at all.

Israel had warned, mainly during the latest round of negotiations, that Iran was seeking to drag out time in order to benefit from the unfreezing of funds that would help the regime recover. But Israel's firm opposition to the memorandum of understandings on the table triggered significant anger among the officials in the US administration promoting the move, and sparked suspicion that Israel was trying to torpedo it.

That is exactly how Washington interpreted Israel's expanding offensive in Lebanon. And although the administration knew in advance of Israel's intention to strike in Beirut because of Hezbollah's continued fire, the call between Trump and Netanyahu took a difficult and negative turn after Iran threatened to abandon the diplomatic contacts.

It is not entirely clear what caused the US president to erupt in this way. Perhaps it was Netanyahu's insistence on continuing the strikes. But according to the report in Axios, Trump was especially angry, shouted, "What the hell are you doing?" and effectively blocked the operational plan in Beirut. That outburst caused Israel serious damage, and even more serious was the deliberate leak that came from officials inside the White House.

Media outlets around the world, most of them biased against Israel, were delighted to quote harsh expressions such as "you're completely crazy," "you would be in prison if not for me" and "Israel is hated," spoken by the person seen as Israel's best friend. Trump failed massively here, and figures in his circle who are not friendly to Israel exploited it to create enormous damage.

Netanyahu apparently erred by stretching the rope too far with the US president, and may not have correctly assessed the strength of the Vance group's influence over the White House. The end result is difficult, and what was meant to be a devastating political blow to Netanyahu has become severe strategic damage, both for the prime minister and for the State of Israel as a whole.