With so many diehard supporters of Israel in key positions in president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, many Israel supporters are assuming it will be smooth sailing for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After years of hot-and-cold wartime tension with the Biden administration, the conventional wisdom is that the Trump cavalry is on the way.
Not so fast.
The first thing to remember is that Trump is a man who loves to make deals. The bigger the deal the better.
The first thing to remember is that Trump is a man who loves to make deals. The second thing is that Bibi depends for his political survival on far-right partners whose idea of a big deal is very different from Trump’s.
The second thing to remember is that Bibi depends for his political survival on far-right partners whose idea of a big deal is very different from Trump’s.
What is Trump’s big deal? In two words: Saudi Arabia.
In the complicated multidimensional chessboard of Mideast politics, a few clear truths cut through the fog. One of those is that adding Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords is a homerun, any way you look at it.
If you’re Trump, it’s a potential Nobel-Prize winner. If you’re Israel, it formalizes an alliance with the birthplace of Islam and strengthens the coalition against your sworn enemies, led by Iran.
And if you’re Saudi Arabia, two powerful armies, those of the U.S. and Israel, will have your back against the nuclear-driven Shiite threat in Iran that still aims to dominate the region.
Meanwhile, if you’re a terror entity that lives to destroy Israel, like the Iranian proxies Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis, an alliance between Israel, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is your nightmare.
Indeed, it’s well known that the Hamas invasion of Oct. 7 was timed to derail talks that were heating up between the dreaded Zionists and the Saudis.
As I wrote in these pages right after Oct. 7, such a deal would “crush the soul” of Israel’s enemies.
“Jew-hating entities like Hamas and its terror sponsor Iran despise the Abraham Accords,” I wrote. “They transform Israel from a demon into an angel, from evil Zionists into useful allies, from oppressors into partners… In the cesspool of terror doctrines, the Jewish state is an evil that is meant to be destroyed, not admired.”
So, a win-win-win Saudi deal is worthy of Trump’s oversized ego. Piece of cake, right?
Well, not quite.
Bibi’s coalition includes far-right partners who have different priorities. Their version of a grand deal is to declare sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and resettle Gaza. And they don’t hide it. In fact, within a week of Trump’s victory, Finance Minister and leader of the Religious Zionist Party Bezalel Smotrich declared on X: “2025 – The year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
As far as dealing with Palestinians in Gaza, Smotrich doesn’t go as far as saying “expulsion”— he says carefully that Israel would “encourage voluntary migration.” His far-right comrade in the coalition, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, even said this week that Netanyahu is showing new “openness” to the idea.
This kind of talk is an instant killer of any deal with the Saudis, who have demanded as a condition at least some movement in resolving the Palestinian conflict. Not only are Bibi’s far-right partners not ready to support any progress on that front, they want to go in the opposite direction.
For Trump, compared to the pageantry of signing an epic deal on the White House lawn in front of the global media, the machinations of dogmatic ideologues in Bibi’s coalition would be both an obstacle and a nuisance.
Remember, Trump is a dealmaker, not an ideologue. When he sees the war in Gaza, he wants to wrap things up and get the hostages out. As he says, there will be “hell to pay” if the hostages are not released. Trump likes to win, but he doesn’t like wars that drag on forever.
Yes, he will have Israel’s back at the U.N. and in international bodies; he will give Israel the military assistance it needs to continue decimating the terror armies at its borders; and he’ll likely bring back sanctions on Iran that will weaken the world’s #1 sponsor of terror.
In return for all that, eventually Trump will expect something from Bibi. What’s so ironic is that a grand deal with the Saudis is so good for Israel it would normally jump at the opportunity.
What’s so ironic is that a deal with the Saudis is so good for Israel it would normally jump at the opportunity. But these are not normal times, and Bibi’s coalition is not a normal coalition, and the new occupant in the White House is certainly not a normal president.
But these are not normal times, and Bibi’s coalition is not a normal coalition, and the new occupant in the White House is certainly not a normal president.
Given the risk to his coalition, when the day comes for a Saudi deal, it’s not clear Bibi will be able to say yes to Trump. That won’t be an easy phone call with the dealmaker-in-chief.
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