Dear President Trump,
There are very few initiatives that you’ve undertaken since coming to office that I agree with — except in the Middle East. The fact that you are traveling there next week and meeting the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar — and that you have no plans to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel — suggests to me that you are starting to understand a vital truth: that this Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten hard-core U.S. interests in the region. Netanyahu is not our friend.
He did think he could make you his chump, though. Which is why I am impressed by how you have signaled to him through your independent negotiations with Hamas, Iran and the Houthis that he has no purchase on you — that you will not be his patsy. It clearly has him in a panic.
I have no doubt that, generally speaking, the Israeli people continue to see themselves as steadfast allies of the American people — and vice versa. But this ultranationalist, messianic Israeli government is not America’s ally. Because this is the first government in Israel’s history whose priority is not peace with more of its Arab neighbors and the benefits that greater security and coexistence would bring. Its priority is the annexation of the West Bank, the expulsion of the Palestinians of Gaza and the re-establishment there of Israeli settlements.
The notion that Israel has a government that is no longer behaving as an American ally, and should not be considered as such, is a shocking and bitter pill for Israel’s friends in Washington to swallow — but swallow it they must.
Because in pursuit of its extremist agenda this Netanyahu government is undermining our interests. The fact that you are not letting Netanyahu run over you the way he has other U.S. presidents is a credit to you. It is also vital to defend the U.S. security architecture your predecessors have built in the region.
The structure of the current U.S.-Arab-Israel alliance was established by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger after the 1973 October War, to push out Russia and make America the dominant global power in the region, which has served our geopolitical and economic interests ever since. The Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy forged the 1974 disengagement agreements between Israel, Syria and Egypt. Those laid the foundations for the Camp David peace treaty. Camp David laid the groundwork for the Oslo Peace Accords. The result was a region dominated by America, its Arab allies and Israel.
