Trump has taken several decisions in the lead up to his Gulf visit that have ignored Israeli interests
US
President-elect Donald Trump joins sword-wielding dancers at welcome
ceremony ahead of banquet at Murabba Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on
20 May 2017 (Mandel Ngan/AFP)
For months, Trump has scorned Netanyahu on the talks as his closest media allies attack "Mossad agents" trying to hamstring the US leader. By his own admission, Trump even resisted Israeli pressure to launch a preemptive attack on the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, Trump gave Netanyahu his full backing to wage war
on Gaza and choke it of supplies. He also won plaudits in Israel for
unleashing a bombing campaign on the Houthis in Yemen.
Now, Trump is moving to silence the guns in Yemen and come to an
accommodation with Israel on Gaza that is upsetting Netanyahu’s base.
“At this stage, it's clear Trump will take some big decisions
unilaterally without significant consideration of Israeli interests when
he wants to, like on Iran or Yemen,” Michael Wahid Hanna, director of
the US programme at International Crisis Group, told MEE.
“But we haven’t seen that so much on the Palestinian file,” he added.
On Friday, Israeli media reported that US Secretary of Defence Pete
Hegseth had cancelled an upcoming visit to Israel. The visit was
scheduled to begin a day before Trump's visit to the Gulf on 13 May.
Hegseth was set to meet Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz.
An 'Aramco moment' for Israel?
On Tuesday, Trump made a surprise announcement to enter a “ceasefire” with the Houthis.
The decision is likely to remove an irritant in the nuclear talks
with Iran because the Houthis receive weapons and training from Tehran.
The US and Iran are scheduled to meet in Oman for their fourth round of
talks on Sunday, just before Trump arrives in the Gulf.
Trump’s announcement also delighted US Arab allies and Saudi Arabia.
The former had been lobbying Trump for an end to the attacks before his
arrival in the kingdom, MEE reported. It also appeased Trump’s war-wary “America First” base.
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Exclusive: Saudi Arabia pressed Trump to stop attacks on Yemen ahead of visit
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But the decision shook Israel because Trump conditioned the truce on
the Houthis not attacking global shipping, leaving Israel out in the
cold. The ceasefire came just days after a Houthi missile struck near
the main terminal of Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.
One US defence official told MEE that the ceasefire had the whiff of
an “Aramco moment,” referring to Trump’s decision in 2019 not to respond
to a massive drone attack claimed by Yemen’s Houthis on Saudi Arabia’s
oil installations.
Indeed, the US’s commitment to the ceasefire was reaffirmed by
Trump’s own ambassador and staunch Israel supporter, Mike Huckabee, on
Friday.
The same day a Houthi missile was shot down over Israel, setting off
sirens, Huckabee told Israeli reporters that the US would only intervene
if one of the casualties had a US passport.
There are 700,000 dual US-Israeli citizens, Huckabee added, warning the Houthis about their odds.
With the nuclear talks scheduled for Sunday and a fragile truce in
Yemen, Trump is turning his attention to the Gaza Strip, which aid
workers warn could descend into mass starvation just as Trump arrives in
the region.
“Trump is still shackled with Gaza ahead of his visit. He cannot wish
it away,” Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East negotiator who is
a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told
MEE.
“He needs an aid plan in his talking points because he is going to be
hammered by the Saudis for what is not happening there [in Gaza]. In
sum, Trump is going to face Arab leaders delighted about his talks with
Iran and truce with the Houthis, but very unhappy about Gaza,” Miller
said.
Trump appears to be scrambling to address those concerns, while accommodating Israel’s chokehold over the enclave, experts say.
Trump returns to Gaza plans
Trump’s Middle East envoy turned global troubleshooter, Steve Witkoff, briefed the UN Security Council on Wednesday about Gaza.
Israeli media reports have said that Trump could unveil a new Gaza ceasefire plan this weekend. According to the reports, Trump could float a role for Hamas in Gaza's future governance.
MEE reported
that the US is trying to insert a previously unknown nonprofit, The
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, into the enclave, citing a 14-page
document circulating with aid groups and diplomats.
The foundation will take control of humanitarian aid distribution in
the besieged enclave while a private US security contractor vetted by
Netanayhu’s government secures the hubs where some Palestinians will
receive 1,750 kcal meals costing donors a little more than a dollar
each, according to diplomats and aid workers.
One UN official told MEE that the Trump administration was “putting
the pressure on” to get the UN and aid groups to acquiesce to the plan,
but they have raised concerns that the project runs against
international humanitarian law.
The plan goes a long way to addressing Israeli objectives to diminish
the UN’s role in Gaza. The plan would effectively militarise and
privatise the trickle of aid into the enclave, two Arab diplomats
briefed on the matter told MEE.
Although the foundation will be run by an American citizen and the US
hopes to bring Qatari, Saudi and Emirati money onboard, Israel will
have wide oversight, the officials told MEE, adding that Israel is loath
to give the Palestinian Authority a role.
But even this plan elicited criticism from Netanyahu’s far-right
coalition partners, who have ramped up calls for a full Israeli
occupation of the strip and forced displacement of Palestinians.
“It is foolishness and a moral and strategic mistake for Gazans to
get supplies while our hostages are starved,” National Security Minister
Itamar Ben Gvir said on Friday.
It’s unclear how the aid plan with a US footprint would sit with
Trump’s America First base, which rallied against Trump’s call earlier
this year for a US takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Conservative podcasters like Tucker Carlson and Congresswoman
Marjorie Taylor Greene have been highly critical of deepening US
engagement in the Middle East.
“I think these people will ask, ‘Why on earth should the US be
involved in administering aid to Gaza as a result of Israel’s war?'”
Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told MEE.
Freeman added that when Trump arrives in the Gulf, he will also face
new concerns that he didn’t during his 2017 trip to the region.
“The Gulf countries traditionally relied on the US to restrain
Israel. Trump’s going to the region with that balance of power gone,”
Freeman said. “Trump has acquiesced to the Israeli tactics and strategy
in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.”
Saudi nuclear energy deal on the table
Trump’s coveted normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia appears more distant than ever, experts say.
Riyadh has effectively pre-negotiated Trump’s visit to block talk of
normalisation without a ceasefire in Gaza or movement towards a
Palestinian state, Arab officials told MEE.
But Trump doesn’t appear to want to wait for Netanyahu. His energy
secretary, Chris Wright, said last month that the US had made progress
with Saudi Arabia toward an agreement on helping Riyadh develop a
commercial nuclear power industry.
Meanwhile, Trump’s National Security Council spread the word with
business figures ahead of his visit that the administration was not tied
to linking a nuclear energy deal - worth billions of dollars - to
normalisation with Israel, a former senior US official told MEE.
That represents a pivotal change that removes one of three key
pillars that the Biden administration was using to entice Riyadh into
signing a normalisation deal with Israel.
Although analysts say the talks are far from complete, just the
possibility that Trump could sell Saudi Arabia nuclear technology
without normalisation alarmed Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who was
helping the Biden administration negotiate a normalisation deal.
“I would like to make it crystal clear that I will never support a
defense agreement with Saudi Arabia or other elements of a proposed deal
that does not include normalizing the relationship with Israel as a
part of the package,” Graham wrote on X on Thursday.
But the Trump administration is already set to expedite billions of
dollars in arms sales to Riyadh, including potentially F-35 warplanes.
This was another pillar in the grand bargain.
Experts say that leaves just the promise of a US defence treaty, a
tall order that requires Senate backing, to offer Saudi Arabia in
exchange for normalisation.
So, from Yemen to nuclear energy, Trump is telling Netanyahu he won’t let him spoil his second Arabian Gulf debut.