Buckle your seat belts for the wild ride that Israelis, along with the Trump administration, are about to experience between now and year’s end as the prime minister, a man whose almost every move is tethered to his determination to remain in power, plans and plots his reelection bid, most likely for early 2026. As former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local”—a truth that holds in Israel as well. Just look at the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription, which has rocked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of late.
But one element of Netanyahu’s bid for reelection isn’t local: Donald Trump. Indeed, the U.S. president may not be the only factor shaping Netanyahu’s political future, but he certainly is an important one. That gives Trump, whose relationship with Netanyahu has been rocky at times, significant leverage. He can either help or hurt Netanyahu’s bid to extend his domination of Israel’s political scene. So, how will Trump play his part, and will he continue his propensity to be more supportive of Netanyahu than not?
Buckle your seat belts for the wild ride that Israelis, along with the Trump administration, are about to experience between now and year’s end as the prime minister, a man whose almost every move is tethered to his determination to remain in power, plans and plots his reelection bid, most likely for early 2026. As former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local”—a truth that holds in Israel as well. Just look at the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription, which has rocked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of late.
But one element of Netanyahu’s bid for reelection isn’t local: Donald Trump. Indeed, the U.S. president may not be the only factor shaping Netanyahu’s political future, but he certainly is an important one. That gives Trump, whose relationship with Netanyahu has been rocky at times, significant leverage. He can either help or hurt Netanyahu’s bid to extend his domination of Israel’s political scene. So, how will Trump play his part, and will he continue his propensity to be more supportive of Netanyahu than not?
The answer may well shape how both Trump and Netanyahu respond to the challenges of Gaza, Iran, and the political roller coaster in Israel in the months to come.
Israel’s parliamentary system is known to be tumultuous: The average length of an Israeli government since independence is roughly 1.9 years, and Israelis go to the polls more frequently than nearly any other country within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The current government is coming up on its third year—an impressive feat given the traumas of the past year and a half. The government is the most right-wing in the country’s history, a marriage between Netanyahu’s Likud party, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) parties, and ultranationalists (led by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich).
If the government comes to term, elections must be held by late October 2026. But there are surely signs that the coalition might not make it until then: Netanyahu’s government has been mired in the crisis over the military conscription of the ultra-Orthodox, who object to Israel’s compulsory military service and demand a bill that formally exempts them. Last week, ministers from two ultra-Orthodox parties submitted their resignations from the government over an impasse on the conscription bill, effectively leaving Netanyahu with a minority government of 50 seats (out of 120).
Given that the Knesset starts a three-month summer recess on July 27, Netanyahu is relatively safe in power for now, but the clock is ticking.
Bibi, ever the political mastermind, is readying his next move, looking to craft a platform that will ensure his reelection and political survival. While Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June gave him a modest bump in the polls, Netanyahu’s coalition is still projected to fall short of a majority.
How can Netanyahu improve his chances? He has options: a deal to free the hostages, a day-after plan that sees Hamas disarmed and many Palestinians moved out of Gaza, an agreement with Syria, and a pathway to normalization with Saudi Arabia. Much of this may well be beyond the achievable. But for any of it to become reality, Netanyahu will need a supportive—or at least an acquiescent—Trump.
Trump, during his first term, showered Netanyahu with helpful policy moves. He took his first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, was the first sitting U.S. president to pray at the Western Wall, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. embassy there, recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, and announced a peace plan that left settlements intact and gave Israel 30 percent of the West Bank. In Trump 1.0, Netanyahu’s popularity was often tied to Trump’s foreign-policy moves: When Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Netanyahu’s Likud surged in the polls.
Trump is immensely popular in Israel, in contrast to other countries, with 69 percent of those polled by Pew Research Center reporting a favorable opinion of the U.S. president, giving him power over the fate of Israeli politics and over the fate of Netanyahu himself.
Having boosted Netanyahu during his first term, does Trump want him as a partner during his second? At first glance, six months in, the answer would appear to be yes. Trump has front-loaded any number of pro-Israeli handouts: delivering the shipments of 2,000 pound bombs that were paused by the Biden administration; canceling sanctions on settlers in the West Bank; hosting Netanyahu at the White House as his first foreign visitor; giving Netanyahu a wide margin to continue the war in Gaza; endorsing plans that would implicitly see Gazans relocated elsewhere; and, perhaps in his grandest move of all, joining Israel’s war against Iran by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites.
Still, Trump’s view of Netanyahu is a complicated one. Unlike former Presidents Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan, Trump’s approach to Israel isn’t sentimental; these presidents were enamored emotionally and politically with the idea of Israel, its people, and the Israeli story. Trump’s view is highly transactional, situational, and guided by what he stands to gain. Trump has made no secret of the fact that he felt played by Netanyahu on Iran during his first term and saw Netanyahu as ungrateful for his political support when the prime minister cozied up to Biden.
Indeed, in the past several months, Trump has taken a number of actions that have sidelined Netanyahu when it was in his interest: opening up a dialogue with Hamas, cutting a deal with the Houthis behind Israel’s back, announcing negotiations with Iran despite Netanyahu’s opposition, and removing sanctions on Syria in spite of Netanyahu’s objections. Indeed, Trump was reportedly angry when Israel struck Gaza’s only Christian church on July 17, prompting Netanyahu to offer an apology, and recent reporting suggests that Trump’s team believes that Netanyahu is out of control following Israeli bombings in Syria.
As Netanyahu plots his political future, the Trump factor looms large, especially as he seeks to maximize his successes and minimize his vulnerabilities. Not only is Trump more popular in Israel than Netanyahu, but on two of Netanyahu’s key national security achievements—prosecuting the war in Gaza (including freeing the hostages held by Hamas) and keeping the pressure on Iran— the United States is central to validating Netanyahu’s story.
So far, Trump has played to Netanyahu’s politics: On Gaza, he has pushed for an incremental release of hostages while allowing Israel to continue the war; on Iran, he has kept the pressure on Tehran, including considering additional military strikes, which is what Netanyahu desires. Should Trump shift in a different direction—pressing Netanyahu to end the war with Hamas (which is what the majority of the Israeli public wants) without achieving Netanyahu’s proclaimed goal of “total victory” over Hamas, or, alternatively, reengaging in diplomacy with Iran—Netanyahu might find himself in a pickle with his right-wing coalition, contradicting his own victory narrative. Netanyahu has a vital stake in doing just enough to keep Trump sweet, but not too much that would cause his right-wing partners to abandon him. What Netanyahu cannot afford to do is to lose Trump and bungle his relations with Washington, something that he has sold as a key element of his success as prime minister.
Trump clearly has leverage over Netanyahu. Will he use it? And what would he ask for in return? The Knesset adjourns at the end of July and will not reconvene until late October, after the Jewish holidays. Well before that, it’s more than likely that Netanyahu will give Trump another win by agreeing to the U.S. proposal to free more hostages in exchange for a two-month cease-fire and an agreement on the delivery of assistance that would hopefully obviate the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians seeking assistance from the sites established through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
There’s unlikely to be a major break between Israel and the United States over Iran, unless, by some miracle, Tehran and Washington find themselves close to an accord on the nuclear issue that Israel opposes. And on Syria, Netanyahu may be smart enough to ease up on the military strikes that have angered Trump administration officials.
Day-after planning on Gaza is unlikely to gain traction with Hamas still holding hostages, and if reports are true that Israel has been seeking the administration’s help in finding countries that would take Palestinians, then there might be little discord between Israel and the United States on next steps for Gaza.
Does Trump even know what he wants? Since ending wars is one of his mantras, he’d like credit for doing that in Gaza. And making peace, of course, is another of his goals, though it’s hard to envision anything enduring between Israelis and Palestinians anytime soon. The administration has watched from the sidelines as Israel has laid the basis for annexation of the West Bank in everything but name. Then there’s the elusive quest for Israeli-Saudi normalization and that even more elusive Nobel Peace Prize that Trump covets.
Some analysts argue that in October, if no deal is reached on ultra-Orthodox conscription, then a date will be set for early elections—to be held within a few months. And one of Netanyahu’s campaign pledges will be to elect him to finish the job, freeing the remaining hostages and creating a pathway to normalization with Saudi Arabia. Trump would love that, though it’s hard to see Netanyahu doing what is required to satisfy the Saudis and other Gulf states on the issue of the Palestinians’ future, or exactly who Netanyahu would trust to sit with him in a new government. There’s also the not-so-small matter of Netanyahu’s ongoing trial and the lack of any accountability for the Israeli security failures that preceded the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
The other possibility is that the conscription issue is somehow resolved, and the current government continues pursuing its right-wing agenda, invoking Benjamin Franklin’s quip about the American colonists and the British: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Whatever road Netanyahu chooses, moving to the center or sticking to the right, he’ll need Trump’s support.
For Trump, whose focus on any given issue is limited, Netanyahu is something of a constant. Trump probably really doesn’t like the prime minister or trust him. But Bibi can be useful. And he’s always ready to flatter, describing Trump as a modern King Cyrus, Harry Truman, and others. And after all, Netanyahu did give Trump a gift—the opportunity to confound the experts and his predecessors with yet another first: claiming success in “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program without a major war. And as hard as it is to see now, Netanyahu might give him another—a Saudi-Israeli normalization accord and that elusive Nobel. Also, backing Netanyahu—the darling of the Jewish right, many Republicans, and especially older evangelical Christians—is smart politics and helps Trump paint the Democrats, many of whom can’t stand the prime minister, as anti-Israel.
As we’ve seen recently in U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s high-profile attendance at Netanyahu’s corruption trial, there’s more than a little sympathy in Trump’s eyes for the legally beleaguered Israeli leader. Trump has more cards than Netanyahu does in their relationship. But there still exists a certain dependence and mutual need for one another. Trump would dump Netanyahu if he saw a bigger or better win with another Israeli prime minister. But if elections do come, then Trump will likely prefer the genuflecting devil he knows rather than one he doesn’t.
