What Could Happen When Unpredictable Trump Meets Arch manipulator Netanyahu?
Haaretz
Alon Pinkas
Feb 3, 2025 9:40 pm IST
Under different circumstances, Tuesday's meeting between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu would be like the coming together of Nitro and Glycerin, or Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. They would incite and radicalize each other with great fanfare.
But these are not ordinary circumstances, and the two leaders come into the meeting from starkly different political positions and with diverging expectations.
There is always an inherent, structural asymmetry between an American president and an Israeli prime minister, reflecting the fundamental asymmetry in the relationship. Now, it seems, the asymmetry is as clear as it's possible to be.
There's a simple equation here: There is very little that Netanyahu, aka "the manipulator," can offer Trump, aka "the transactionalist." The only thing he is expected to give – a commitment to adhere to a durable cease-fire in Gaza and continued implementation of the hostage and cease-fire agreement – he is there to whine and haggle about.
That cannot end well. So while the optics will be nice, the substance may prove down the road to be less amicable.
The prevalent conventional wisdom is that Netanyahu is going to Washington to derail the second stage of the Gaza cease-fire and hostage agreement.
Why? Because he has to, since it contradicts his grand statements on the war's objectives, and because stage two is critically endangering him politically.
How? By trying to manipulate Trump and saturate him with endless factoids and details that he is not familiar with, adding his typical hyperbolized threats. He will argue that after nearly 16 months, Hamas still needs to be defeated, therefore the war must be resumed after the first stage's 42 days have elapsed.
Since Trump is considered "anarchy in human form," and since Netanyahu is confident in his ability to deceive American presidents at will, he believes it will work. It won't.
The second prevalent conventional wisdom is that Trump is going to promise a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps, but not anytime soon – certainly not after the president's suggestion that 1.5 million Palestinians be relocated to an adamantly reluctant Egypt and Jordan.
The two wisdoms are probably accurate, but there's another truism at play here: In Trump's world, Netanyahu is an irritant who cannot, however hard he tries, provide the United States with tangible benefits.
Trump's main foreign policy target is China, and Netanyahu is not exactly an ally in that regard. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu has nothing of value to offer a notoriously transactional operator like Trump.
It appears that he is intent on trying to relitigate and possibly renege on the one thing Trump actually wants from him: an end to the war in Gaza. He may succeed in slightly changing the sequence of the deal's second stage, perhaps obtain consent to a slight change in the demarcation lines of the Israeli withdrawal. But what he cannot do is revoke on the agreement.
From Trump's perspective, this goes beyond stage two of the cease-fire and hostage release deal. This is about how he defines an ally – a term he views with skepticism and derision to begin with.
Look at his bellicose, brute decision last weekend to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, last week's threats against Colombia and a statement that he will be weighing the imposition of tariffs on the European Union next week. He imposed tariffs on allies.
He makes no distinction between tariffs on a rival like China (10 percent on all imported goods) and tariffs on America's two closest geographical allies, Canada and Mexico, as well as threats against Denmark – a founding member of NATO – over Greenland.
Israel needs to reinvent itself as a positive ally in Trump's world, and that will not be accomplished by manipulating him into permitting the resumption of the war in Gaza, or being perceived as trying to drag the Americans into a war with Iran.
The one thing Netanyahu should desperately hope Trump doesn't raise is the China issue. In his blustery, confrontational engagement with China, Trump is binary. Surely he remembers that in August 2023, Netanyahu claimed he was invited to visit China by President Xi Jinping. An hour later, an anonymous comment from the PM's office said that "the trip to China is meant to signal to President Biden that 'Israel has options'" – all this against the backdrop of U.S. criticism of his constitutional coup.
Trump couldn't care less about Netanyahu's constitutional coup, but he surely also remembers that the prime minister never remarked on the China-Iran "strategic cooperation" agreement signed in 2021.
Netanyahu has a strange political timeline evolution. In the months after the October 7 calamity, he had a vested interest in prolonging the war without any clear and viable political objectives. He profusely used verbs such as "eradicate," "obliterate," "annihilate" and "topple" Hamas, and one adjective, "total" – as in "total victory."
The idea was to distance himself from his responsibility for the worst debacle in Israel's history. His motivation and calculus was based solely on political survival: The war must be prolonged so that Netanyahu can live another day, and if that means more hostages die – so be it. According to Netanyahu's megalomania, Israel can survive without some unfortunate hostages. But it surely cannot survive without him, the divine savior of Jewish nationhood.
In his mind, every passing day distanced him from being held accountable for October 7. This allowed him to blame an imaginary cabal working against him, which included the Israeli army, the intelligence agencies, Iran, Qatar, pro-democracy demonstrators, President Joe Biden and the entire world. Everyone was responsible except him, the Israeli prime minister who had actively and by design strengthened Hamas since 2017
Then came last month's cease-fire agreement and now the timeline had been reversed: Every day that goes by and the cease-fire and hostage release deal is implemented draws him closer to his day of reckoning, He cannot allow that to happen. It's not just his responsibility for the October 7 catastrophe, but the fact that after 16 months, Hamas has been militarily decimated but not eradicated. No substitute political entity or power is filling the governance vacuum in Gaza and no one regards the war as a "total victory."
In order to avoid that reckoning and inevitable encounter with reality, Netanyahu has a vested interest in derailing stage two of the agreement, according to which by day 42 (Monday was day 16), Israel will have to begin a force reduction. By day 50, it will have to complete its withdrawal from most of Gaza and be party to a permanent cease-fire.
Predictably, in the days leading up to his meeting with Trump, he began the process of undermining stage two negotiations by spreading a new narrative: Hamas will not free all the hostages, Hamas is intent on violating the agreement – ergo, the war will have to resume. He is confident that he can convince and manipulate a details-averse Trump to buy into his "Once we eradicate Hamas, there's a better deal to be had" theory.
Trump will of course recall how the very same Netanyahu encouraged him in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, promising a better deal because Iran would collapse under the "maximum pressure" sanctions policy. In today's reality, though, Iran is much closer to military nuclear capability than it ever was – which is why Saudi Arabia will have a much bigger say on Trump's foreign policy than Netanyahu.
The main reason no one really knows where the meeting is headed is less because of Trump's trademark unpredictability and more because Netanyahu has no coherent or definable strategy. He's just making up moves along the way with one overriding, guiding principle: his political survival. That is not something Trump does or should care about.
Alon Pinkas
Feb 3, 2025 9:40 pm IST
Under different circumstances, Tuesday's meeting between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu would be like the coming together of Nitro and Glycerin, or Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. They would incite and radicalize each other with great fanfare.
But these are not ordinary circumstances, and the two leaders come into the meeting from starkly different political positions and with diverging expectations.
There is always an inherent, structural asymmetry between an American president and an Israeli prime minister, reflecting the fundamental asymmetry in the relationship. Now, it seems, the asymmetry is as clear as it's possible to be.
There's a simple equation here: There is very little that Netanyahu, aka "the manipulator," can offer Trump, aka "the transactionalist." The only thing he is expected to give – a commitment to adhere to a durable cease-fire in Gaza and continued implementation of the hostage and cease-fire agreement – he is there to whine and haggle about.
That cannot end well. So while the optics will be nice, the substance may prove down the road to be less amicable.
The prevalent conventional wisdom is that Netanyahu is going to Washington to derail the second stage of the Gaza cease-fire and hostage agreement.
Why? Because he has to, since it contradicts his grand statements on the war's objectives, and because stage two is critically endangering him politically.
How? By trying to manipulate Trump and saturate him with endless factoids and details that he is not familiar with, adding his typical hyperbolized threats. He will argue that after nearly 16 months, Hamas still needs to be defeated, therefore the war must be resumed after the first stage's 42 days have elapsed.
Since Trump is considered "anarchy in human form," and since Netanyahu is confident in his ability to deceive American presidents at will, he believes it will work. It won't.
The second prevalent conventional wisdom is that Trump is going to promise a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps, but not anytime soon – certainly not after the president's suggestion that 1.5 million Palestinians be relocated to an adamantly reluctant Egypt and Jordan.
The two wisdoms are probably accurate, but there's another truism at play here: In Trump's world, Netanyahu is an irritant who cannot, however hard he tries, provide the United States with tangible benefits.
Trump's main foreign policy target is China, and Netanyahu is not exactly an ally in that regard. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu has nothing of value to offer a notoriously transactional operator like Trump.
It appears that he is intent on trying to relitigate and possibly renege on the one thing Trump actually wants from him: an end to the war in Gaza. He may succeed in slightly changing the sequence of the deal's second stage, perhaps obtain consent to a slight change in the demarcation lines of the Israeli withdrawal. But what he cannot do is revoke on the agreement.
From Trump's perspective, this goes beyond stage two of the cease-fire and hostage release deal. This is about how he defines an ally – a term he views with skepticism and derision to begin with.
Look at his bellicose, brute decision last weekend to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, last week's threats against Colombia and a statement that he will be weighing the imposition of tariffs on the European Union next week. He imposed tariffs on allies.
He makes no distinction between tariffs on a rival like China (10 percent on all imported goods) and tariffs on America's two closest geographical allies, Canada and Mexico, as well as threats against Denmark – a founding member of NATO – over Greenland.
Israel needs to reinvent itself as a positive ally in Trump's world, and that will not be accomplished by manipulating him into permitting the resumption of the war in Gaza, or being perceived as trying to drag the Americans into a war with Iran.
The one thing Netanyahu should desperately hope Trump doesn't raise is the China issue. In his blustery, confrontational engagement with China, Trump is binary. Surely he remembers that in August 2023, Netanyahu claimed he was invited to visit China by President Xi Jinping. An hour later, an anonymous comment from the PM's office said that "the trip to China is meant to signal to President Biden that 'Israel has options'" – all this against the backdrop of U.S. criticism of his constitutional coup.
Trump couldn't care less about Netanyahu's constitutional coup, but he surely also remembers that the prime minister never remarked on the China-Iran "strategic cooperation" agreement signed in 2021.
Netanyahu has a strange political timeline evolution. In the months after the October 7 calamity, he had a vested interest in prolonging the war without any clear and viable political objectives. He profusely used verbs such as "eradicate," "obliterate," "annihilate" and "topple" Hamas, and one adjective, "total" – as in "total victory."
The idea was to distance himself from his responsibility for the worst debacle in Israel's history. His motivation and calculus was based solely on political survival: The war must be prolonged so that Netanyahu can live another day, and if that means more hostages die – so be it. According to Netanyahu's megalomania, Israel can survive without some unfortunate hostages. But it surely cannot survive without him, the divine savior of Jewish nationhood.
In his mind, every passing day distanced him from being held accountable for October 7. This allowed him to blame an imaginary cabal working against him, which included the Israeli army, the intelligence agencies, Iran, Qatar, pro-democracy demonstrators, President Joe Biden and the entire world. Everyone was responsible except him, the Israeli prime minister who had actively and by design strengthened Hamas since 2017
Then came last month's cease-fire agreement and now the timeline had been reversed: Every day that goes by and the cease-fire and hostage release deal is implemented draws him closer to his day of reckoning, He cannot allow that to happen. It's not just his responsibility for the October 7 catastrophe, but the fact that after 16 months, Hamas has been militarily decimated but not eradicated. No substitute political entity or power is filling the governance vacuum in Gaza and no one regards the war as a "total victory."
In order to avoid that reckoning and inevitable encounter with reality, Netanyahu has a vested interest in derailing stage two of the agreement, according to which by day 42 (Monday was day 16), Israel will have to begin a force reduction. By day 50, it will have to complete its withdrawal from most of Gaza and be party to a permanent cease-fire.
Predictably, in the days leading up to his meeting with Trump, he began the process of undermining stage two negotiations by spreading a new narrative: Hamas will not free all the hostages, Hamas is intent on violating the agreement – ergo, the war will have to resume. He is confident that he can convince and manipulate a details-averse Trump to buy into his "Once we eradicate Hamas, there's a better deal to be had" theory.
Trump will of course recall how the very same Netanyahu encouraged him in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, promising a better deal because Iran would collapse under the "maximum pressure" sanctions policy. In today's reality, though, Iran is much closer to military nuclear capability than it ever was – which is why Saudi Arabia will have a much bigger say on Trump's foreign policy than Netanyahu.
The main reason no one really knows where the meeting is headed is less because of Trump's trademark unpredictability and more because Netanyahu has no coherent or definable strategy. He's just making up moves along the way with one overriding, guiding principle: his political survival. That is not something Trump does or should care about.
