Raging, Petulant, Contradictory: How to Interpret Trump's Middle East March Madness - U.S. News - Haaretz.com
The only thing that matches U.S. President Donald Trump's wild rhetorical pendulum swings on the Middle East in recent weeks is the equally wild pendulum swings of reactions and confused interpretations in Israel.
What began with praise and adulation that Trump will expel all Palestinians from Gaza, and that he "assured" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel can resume the war, ended with: "He ingeniously concocted a scheme with Qatar to circumvent Israel because he is fed up with Netanyahu's recalcitrance and stalling, and then authorized direct talks with Hamas through his hostage envoy, Adam Boehler."
In both Washington and Jerusalem, there were contradictory clarifications and modified statements. But none can spin or conceal the inconvenient truth: Israel has very limited levers over the Trump administration, and the president may not really view Israel as an indispensable ally.
Here's a sample of those contradictions:
"Trump wants the Gaza war to end immediately" / "Trump green-lighted Israel's resumption of the war."
"Trump insists on the implementation of stage two of the cease-fire agreement" / "Trump is threatening that unless Hamas releases all the hostages by noon tomorrow, all hell will break loose."
'Trump is frustrated with Netanyahu so he pushed through a back channel with Hamas'
"Trump wants all hostages released immediately" / "Trump wants all hostages with U.S. citizenship released."
"Trump wants to depopulate Gaza, expel 2.3 million Palestinians and build a beautiful Riviera" / "Trump endorses Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff's plan – a hostage release and extended cease-fire framework – that essentially ensures Hamas stays in Gaza, although without governing powers."
Hostage families greeting President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and first lady Melania Trump, during the inauguration parade in Washington two months ago.Credit: Susan Walsh/AP
This may all seem replete with inconsistencies and glaring lack of a clear policy. It is, but it does have one overriding principle: Trump wants this Gaza saga off his table and is unhappy with Netanyahu's habitual procrastination and manipulation.
The president is busy with tariffs, Wall Street, Ukraine, egg prices, Iran and China. If there's ever going to be a "Saudi deal" as an extension of the Abraham Accords, Gaza must be wrapped up.
If you accept this logic, then all the inconsistencies and contradictions make some sense. But there's a bigger picture here too. Trump's Middle East pendulum swings, his approach to Ukraine, his bellicose rhetoric over tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, and his lax attitude to the possibility of a U.S. recession and how financial markets react, all stem from the fact that he is an agent of chaos. He is very enthusiastically intent on demolishing old structures, but is very deficient in presenting alternatives.
In this respect, his policy on impose-suspend-threaten-halt tariffs and his statements on Gaza are similar. They are destructive, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but not constructive – which is necessarily a very bad thing.
Empty shelves with Buy Canadian Instead signs are seen in the American Whiskey section of a liqor store in Vancouver on Monday.Credit: Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
To understand Trump's modus operandi, it is worth looking at the core of what explains (partially, as is always the case with him) his behavior and policy predilections.
Trump's most recurring theme, style and tone are constant moaning, whining, bitterness and plaintiveness. While these sentiments are broadly directed with rage and acrimony at liberal elites and the domestic "deep state," it is most conspicuous and crude in his foreign policy.
We tend to describe it as "transactional" and financially driven, but the underlining impetus is that America has no allies, pretty much everyone else is a loser and, thus, Trump needs to do everything himself. Everyone is cheating and duping America; everyone is out to get him; everyone hates America, and therefore everyone hates him.
In order to govern, a querulous Trump – like his sniveling hitherto soulmate in Israel – needs to take this cacophony of real and imagined grievances and turn it into a coherent narrative. To achieve this, he spuriously exaggerates and promiscuously lies to create a simple story: "The world outside and liberal elites inside are out to get me – and us – and I'm the only one standing in their way."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday.Credit: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP
Enough people are incited and angered by this, and buy into the "us against them" theory of life. It allows people to project, deflect and blame abstract entities for everything. It is the fuel of authoritarian power: NATO is ripping us off. Mexico and Canada are cheating us. China is duping us. The deep state is complicit with them by showering hard-earned taxpayers' money on drug-infested illegal immigration, on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and on radical university curricula.
Trump, as David Brooks wrote in The New York Times last week, "lives for perpetual conflict and endless domination games."
The main instrument used to promote his narrative and provide it with continuous traction is language. This is a populist language that has no tones, nuances or recognition of reality's complexities. It is exactly what liberal democrats around the world lack: A clear, oversimplified, immediately understandable and conveniently adoptable black-and-white depiction of reality.
His shifting policy announcements, flip-flopping and contradictory statements, on everything from tariffs to Ukraine to the hostages in Gaza, cannot be dismissed as just a lack of clarity or coherence. That's a given. It is deliberate and provides Trump with the ultimate cover at any point.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaking in Tehran on Saturday. Iran is not the only country to receive mixed messages from Trump.Credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
One day he severs intelligence cooperation with Ukraine; the next he threatens Russia with sanctions. One day he sends a letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, explaining that he wants a nuclear deal; the next he threatens Iran militarily. One day he encourages Israel to resume the war; the next he sends an envoy to talk directly to Hamas; and the day after that, he echoes on his social media platform some genius pundit on a U.S. TV show who quotes "sources" saying that unless Hamas frees all of the hostages, "they will meet U.S. Special Forces" – and not for tea – in a crude, no-confidence rebuke of Israel "resuming the war."
If Trump is unhappy with Netanyahu's less-than-cooperative management of the Gaza impasse, Iran will present a much greater disagreement between the two countries. If Trump did in fact bypass Netanyahu regarding Gaza, imagine what he might do when Netanyahu tries to undermine his attempts to reach a new nuclear deal with Iran, provided Tehran gets on board.
Despite Trump's famous unpredictability, and notwithstanding his threats against Hamas, there does appear to be a degree of impatience with Netanyahu – whom Trump views as someone who not only failed on October 7, but failed to eradicate Hamas as he's vowed to do for 17 months and is now dragging the United States into the mix. This is likely to grow rather than be mitigated. And we all know what Trump thinks of losers.