Trump's Message to Netanyahu Is Loud and Clear: You're Fired!
What Trump's 'made-for-TV diplomacy' means for Israel and the Middle East
After the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, Yasser Arafat put in a phone call to U.S. President Bill Clinton. "You are a great man," Arafat said. "The hell I am," Clinton said he responded. "I'm a colossal failure, and you made me one." He was neither the first nor the last president to leave office feeling soured by the never-ending Middle East entanglement.
If there is one quality that Donald Trump doesn't want attached to himself, it's failure. He is committed to success, preferably success that's translated into dollars – for his country, for his friends and for his wallet.
He hates losers. If Benjamin Netanyahu had been a contestant on "The Apprentice," the reality show that made Trump a star, he would have been dismissed with the famous "You're fired!" send-off. On his score sheet would have been written: "passive, cowardly, dogmatic and a liar." Trump sees him – an aging, archaic and sickly leader whose memory frequently fails him and who is stuck on October 7 and intent on waging an interminable war.
- What Trump's power play reveals about Netanyahu and his real motives
- Trump's Gulf tour lays bare how 'Netanyahu first' really means 'Israel last'
- Trump's snubs: What Netanyahu's declining global prowess means for his fortunes at home
Trump's three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and his expressions of love and friendship for his hosts, including a semi-erotic remark about the president of Syria, was without a doubt the most traumatic week diplomatically speaking for the Netanyahu government since its establishment. And it's not like the government has lacked for crises – tensions with the United States and the Western powers over its judicial overhaul; growing diplomatic isolation due to the war in Gaza and the deaths of tens of thousands of non-combatants; suspensions of American arms deliveries; and arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
US President Donald Trump visits the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, accompanied by Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (R) in Abu Dhabi on May 15, 2025.Credit: AFP/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI
Despite all the above, this week was more painful than any other. Each photo-op and declaration was like a fire burning in the flesh of Netanyahu, who even before the presidential election had bet all his chips on Trump-Cyrus.
When U.S. President Barack Obama flew to Egypt at the start of his first term and rather than to Israel, the right grumbled, "Nu, what did you expect from a Democratic president whose middle name is Hussein?" When the Republican Donald John Trump did much the same, they quickly ran out of excuses.
Like the three Democratic presidents before him who had the misfortune of working with Netanyahu, Trump also understood before he was re-elected that the interests of the State of Israel do not necessarily coincide with those of its prime minister. Indeed, over the past decade, they have been at odds. At the beginning of his term, he even gave Netanyahu a chance. When he saw that there was no one to talk to, he set a trap for him on his second visit, humiliating the minister in front of the TV cameras – something that neither Biden, Obama nor Clinton would ever have thought of doing to him, despite their disgust.
Israel's loss is bigger than the prime minister's. Trump's last round of diplomacy, in the final years of his first White House term, ended with the achievement of the Abraham Accords. His interests then were no different than what they are today. The Arab countries want recognition, legitimacy and help with their defense, which translates into obtaining advanced arms; the president wants respect, power and money. The only thing that has changed is Israel's status. Back then, they valued normalization with Israel. That is no longer so under the sixth Netanyahu government. "You'll do it in your own time," the president told his Saudi hosts, as an aside.
This was the main theme of the visit: There's a new favorite for America in the neighborhood. The Saudis (literally) paid a lot of money for that status. We, oh my, have squandered ours. Our status in the region was once nourished by shared values. Netanyahu trampled on these values during the Biden administration, and offered no alternative when Trump took over.
Lacking intelligence
Like other peoples, Israelis also live under a veil of false images. Saudi Arabia is always seen as a dictatorial, backward petro-state. That has not been the case for a long time. In the field of artificial intelligence alone, the country is investing hundreds of billions of dollars as part of its Vision 2020 program, which is turning the kingdom into a technology powerhouse. The government has ministers and officials responsible for the issue. And here? They threw another invented job at the genius of the generation, Almog Cohen. Netanyahu's approach has always been: "We will dismantle the public service, dismantle politics, rob the coffers, but Israel's productive sector will continue to take us forward, with the high-tech engine pulling the train."
Far-right MK Almog Cohen, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, in 2023.Credit: Emil Salman
It doesn't work that way – his criminal approach has consequences. Cohen is just one example. Everyone saw this week the incredible contrast between an Israeli prime minister attending his corruption trial in Tel Aviv, while the U.S. president is in Riyadh with regional leaders signing a host of agreements involving investments, trade deals and progress whose overarching theme is "regional cooperation."
Israel also has a Regional Cooperation Ministry – it was invented as a humiliating job for Shimon Peres, it faltered and deteriorated over the years until it reached its current low under the leadership of David Amsalem. What does the hate-monger and miserable jobber have to do with this? The only cooperation it generates is between the Likud party branches.
With Trump flying back to Washington, most of the attention has dissipated. Meaning, Trump's attention. The man is a walking case of ADD dressed in an expensive suit. A capricious, transactional person who doesn't delve into details. Israel will continue to wallow in bloody mud, under the auspices of the far right in control of a prime minister bent on fleeing criminal justice and an election. Trump's regional favorites have had it for less than a year. They will receive security and technological superiority that will dent Israel's status for many years to come. If we manage to get out of that mud, alas, the Middle East is ready for change. If not, the blows will keep coming.
The generous decade-long aid package that Obama granted us in 2016 will come to an end next year. Good luck to us in negotiations on a new pact with a president focused on money rather than on ideals or alliances.
Bibi didn't know
Even at gunpoint, Trump wouldn't acknowledge Netanyahu's supposed role in the release of hostage Edan Alexander this week. In his tweets, speeches and interviews, the president made sure to thank Qatar and Egypt, his team led by Steve Witkoff and most of all, himself. When asked if Israel was in the picture, he replied: "We told them." His _expression_ said it all.
Steve Witkoff during a January visit to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.Credit: Hadas Parush
The role of good cop has been assumed by Witkoff, who is a compassionate Jew who came to the aid of the humiliated prime minister. "Mr. Prime Minister, I told Edan and his family everything that you have done to make this possible over the last several days," he said in a phone call. But the following day, in a conversation with the hostage families, he spoke more freely, attributing Alexander's release to cooperation between Egypt, Qatar, Hamas and the Trump administration. Journalist Barak Ravid reported that 72 hours before he learned of the release, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was in Washington and had no idea about it. He had heard rumors, and was forced to contact Witkoff directly, who confirmed it to him.
The Americans learned their lesson from the last time: Then, when they shared information with the Prime Minister's Office, it was leaked and the negotiations fell apart. This is the main reason why Yael and Adi Alexander did not bother to thank the man who had previously blocked their son's release and sentenced him to additional weeks of hell and torment.
The evil Bibi-ist right is unable to forgive Edan – a moral and kind-hearted Golani Brigade soldier who came to Israel on his own to enlist and fight – because his freedom involved humiliating their king. They take out their anger on the soldier and his family. Ugliness and evil were not confined to social media. One bully defamed Alexander for the circumstances in which he was taken prisoner, and his mother for not kneeling and thanking Netanyahu; another commentator, on a seemingly more respectable channel, chided the prime minister for not sabotaging the government's negotiations with Hamas.
Israeli army forces take position on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing war with the Palestinian militant movement Hamas on May 15, 2025.Credit: AFP/JACK GUEZ
Well, it's not his fault. This time Bibi really didn't know. Had he known, he would have been a real terrorist. In a pathetic attempt to prevent the released hostage from traveling to Qatar, to be photographed with Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, he arranged a phone call with Edan in which he "instructed" him to obey the doctors' orders. Then he dispatched his humiliated negotiating team to Qatar, with their mouths gagged and their hands tied.
The release of all hostages is not on the cards for the prime minister. It's hardly a limited deal. Its value will be in line with what can be sold to Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. In a meeting with soldiers wounded in the war who support its renewal, Netanyahu expressed himself in a disgraceful manner. "If Hamas says, 'Enough, enough, enough – take 10 hostages,' we'll tell them, 'Bring them to us," as if they were a crate of apples.
And what about the remaining 10 (at least) living hostages after that? And what about the dozens of dead? They will be sacrificed on the altar of occupation and destruction. There is no price too high for the preservation of the Israeli axis of evil.