Shalom Lipner
Benjamin Netanyahu was optimistic that Israel’s fate would be different. While much of the world braced for the impact of Donald Trump’s encore in the Oval Office—and the fallout from his repeated vows to stop the world from “ripping us off”—Israel’s prime minister was buoyant at the repeat prospect of playing tag team with a U.S. president who prides himself on being “Israel’s best friend.” Just over 100 days into the second Trump administration, however, Netanyahu appears to be lamenting the emerging gap between what Trump says on Israel and what he’s actually willing to do.
Things started out well enough. Just two weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Netanyahu was welcomed to Washington as the first foreign leader to visit the White House during the president’s second term. Door prizes awaiting Netanyahu included an executive order halting U.S. involvement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and blocking all U.S. funding for UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees—two entities with which Israel’s interactions have been famously acrimonious—and a presidential memorandum restoring “maximum pressure” on Iran’s government. Trump then said in a White House press conference that the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.” The prime minister returned to Jerusalem in triumphant spirits.
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