What Has Netanyahu Accomplished with Game-changing Trump Meeting?

February 7, 2025

by: Alex Traiman ~ JNS

Friday, 7 February 2025 | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House meeting with newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump has created a surreal paradigm shift that completely alters Israel’s strategic position in its war with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

For the past 16 months, Israel has not only been waging a physical war with bitter terror organizations and their primary state sponsor. It has also been contending with diplomatic adversaries, including both longtime allies and opponents, who have continuously pressed Israel to alter its battleplans.

Enter Trump. Just two weeks into his second term in office, Israel’s strategic position has changed dramatically. Seven months earlier, Netanyahu came to Washington to address Congress, as well as to meet with outgoing President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. At the time, and until just weeks ago, the United States was playing the role of a somewhat reluctant ally that knows best though its policies and those of previous administrations, including under former President Barack Obama, which can be assigned much of the blame for the current instability across the Middle East.

The feeling among the prime minister’s inner circle just seven months later is that Israel is now navigating the next strategic and diplomatic chapter of the war among friends. Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and incoming US Ambassador Mike Huckabee all have staunch pro-Israel credentials.

Trump has already proved he will be at times an unpredictable ally with his surprise call for the United States to take ownership of the Gaza Strip. Yet Trump’s top brass appear dedicated to strengthening Israel’s regional and global position, in addition to working toward building a new era of peace in the Middle East.

Further, they are prepared to listen to Netanyahu and his strong policy team. That team includes indispensable top diplomat Ron Dermer, Minister of Strategic Affairs; Ophir Falk, foreign policy advisor; Caroline Glick, newly appointed international affairs advisor (and former JNS senior contributing editor) Caroline Glick; and newly appointed Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter—all American-born conservatives and policy veterans who know intimately how to speak the new administration’s language.

That team came to Washington with significant objectives and will leave with diplomatic achievements in hand.

Rearmaments

The first is weapons resupply. Despite the claims of the Biden administration, it has been revealed that Washington indeed withheld many shipments of weapons to Israel during the war, including those paid for and due for delivery. Trump has removed the holds, and so the Israeli military will be restocked with critical supplies to finish the war and remove critical vulnerabilities.

Sanctions Relief

Even before Netanyahu arrived, Trump’s team removed sanctions issued against Israeli citizens, none of whom have criminal records, accused of “settler violence” by the Biden team. Among those sanctioned were individuals who stood in front of humanitarian aid trucks headed into Gaza in protest of Israel’s policy of facilitating assistance for those holding Israelis and those of other nationalities hostage.

Diplomatic Backing

In the diplomatic realm, the Trump team has shifted the “tone” of America’s message, which has a reverberating global effect. Netanyahu’s team harshly criticized the “tone” of Harris’s statements following her White House meeting with Israel’s prime minister in July.

In the White House press briefing on February 4, Trump did not mention Israel’s responsibilities in addressing a humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and even praised Israel for fighting courageously and effectively against its enemies.

Israel can now also firmly count on a US veto against proposed resolutions against Israel at the UN Security Council, which was a major uncertainty under the previous administration. Moreover, the United States will now pull out of the UN Human Rights Council; discontinue USAID and bring its functions into the Rubio-led State Department; and defund key anti-Israel agencies, including UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees], which has proved itself to be the internationally funded semi-governmental arm of Hamas.

‘A Demolition Zone’

It cannot be understated how critical this new layer of diplomatic cover is for Israel at this specific moment. With a six-week temporary ceasefire now in place, the level of destruction in Gaza is coming into full focus.

For the first time in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the IDF has finally punished Gazans for decades of terror against Israel; voting for and supporting terror organizations as their governing agencies; and allowing their homes, schools, mosques and hospitals to be used as military bases, weapons storehouses, entrances to Hamas’s terror-tunnel network and prisons for the hostages taken from southern Israel as part of the Hamas assault on October 7, 2023.

The massacre of 1,200 people that day has been repaid a thousand-fold. Israel has not only rooted out the overwhelming majority of Hamas’s terror infrastructure but has spoken the language of the Middle East in making the majority of Gaza uninhabitable and thoroughly humiliating the Palestinian people.

Preventing a Diplomatic Avalanche

A diplomatic avalanche against Israel is likely to ensue. Had Harris won the presidential election and brought her anti-Israel advisers into the administration, the consequences could have been catastrophic.

UN Security Council Resolutions, International Criminal Court [ICC]-issued arrest warrants and judgments at the International Court of Justice [ICJ] would likely have led to arms embargoes and economic sanctions against Israel.

Instead, the Trump team is praising Jerusalem for its courage and punishing those institutions that are harming Israel. America is not publicly holding Israel accountable for rebuilding Gaza, seeking instead to take responsibility themselves and trying to organize a coalition of Arab states to help fund any resettlement and rebuilding effort.

Gaza Resettlement

Trump’s suggestion is already garnering false accusations of ethnic cleansing, just as Israel has been falsely accused of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza for fighting the war started by Hamas. With his call for resettlement suggestion, Trump is correcting one of the most fundamental injustices of Israel’s 16-month military campaign: allowing Palestinians the basic humanitarian right to flee the war zone.

Whether or not Trump will succeed in resettling up to 1.8 million Gazans, as he suggested alongside Netanyahu, the situation in which not one person is allowed to leave will soon come to an end. Given the opportunity, hundreds of thousands of Gazans would quickly take the opportunity to leave. Maybe Trump’s statements represent an extreme bargaining position as he opens the market to new ideas. But even that is a major step in the right direction.

‘Mideast Diplomacy’

The president is about to start intense diplomacy with Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to come up with a plan to pick up the pieces and turn the page after Israel’s overwhelming victory. His next rounds of diplomacy will include planned White House visits this month by Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

While it remains to be seen whether or not the entirety of the Gazan population will be moved to Egypt, Jordan or elsewhere, it is highly likely that hundreds of thousands will actively seek to leave the territory with America’s assistance.

And even if many or even most remain in the coastal enclave, Trump has guaranteed that Hamas will not govern the territory. The Trump team is also likely to consider Israeli arguments that the Palestinian Authority represents the flip side of the same coin as Hamas and not be granted control of Gaza.

Phase One

Trump and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, were key to pressing Hamas to accept a phase one deal to release up to 33 of 98 remaining Israeli hostages. In the terms, which were originally structured by the Biden administration, Israel was forced to commit to six weeks of a ceasefire; the withdrawal from population centers in the Gaza Strip; and the release of 1,900 Palestinian prisoners of war and convicted terrorists.

While Witkoff was pleased that both sides agreed to a deal and Israelis are extremely happy that hostages are being released, the team now recognizes that Israel was pressed to accept a bad, unjust and even immoral deal. Israel is now working closely with Witkoff and the sense is that the special envoy, who has been criticized for business ties with Qatar, is equally supportive of the Jewish state as other members of the administration.

Witkoff will now be focused on figuring out a formula for extending the ceasefire and getting the remaining Israeli hostages out of captivity.

The End of Oslo?

The Biden administration’s primary objective vis-à-vis Israel has consistently been the division of territory and the creation of a Palestinian state, even after October 7 proved that ceding land to Palestinians is a guaranteed recipe for a terror state

Trump has repeatedly stated an openness to find a new paradigm to the failed, two-state Oslo concept. He is being vague on whether or not a state will be created at all, as well as where such a state might be located.

The Trump team recognizes that ceding the biblical territories of Judea and Samaria would represent a gross injustice—and become an existential security risk. In one of the world’s worst examples of cultural misappropriation, most of the international arena refers to Judea and Samaria as the “West Bank.” The current administration is now mandating that the territory be referred to by its original name.

 

Max Sanctions Campaign

Israel may have been hoping to get a green light from the Trump administration for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It does not appear such a move is Trump’s first choice. That may seem like an immediate failure; however, the Trump team does not seem to have ruled out a strike altogether.

Meanwhile, Trump is introducing a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions against Iran, aimed at cutting off 100% of all oil exports, to cripple the Iranian economy. There is a major question as to how quickly sanctions can work and if they would eventually collapse the ruling Islamic Republic.

Iran could respond to the sanctions by offering to dismantle its own nuclear program in exchange for economic freedom or even significant aid packages. More likely, its leaders will respond belligerently. If Tehran refuses to negotiate in the coming weeks, Washington may be more willing to greenlight an Israeli strike—or possibly participate alongside Israel in a short but forceful air and special forces campaign to neutralize the nuclear program.

America and Israel are sure to be closely coordinated on Iran in the weeks and months ahead.

To truly appreciate what Netanyahu has accomplished during his visit with Trump, one must take stock of the opportunities that the new administration will offer in the next weeks, months and course of four years. It is likely to take time for the new administration to catch its bearings and begin steps in the right direction. But it’s already off to a quick start.

It’s also a moment to consider how difficult Israel’s situation would have been if Trump had not returned to office. Without Harris at the helm, Israel is freer to pursue its war aims of “total victory” minus the global diplomatic consequences. Israel is now free to act, according to Harris’s own mantra, by building toward “what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

Posted on February 7, 2025

Source: (This article was originally published by the Jewish News Syndicate on February 6, 2025. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

Photo Credit: Liri Agami/Flash90/jns.org