Trump Isn't the President Israel Was Hoping For

Trump Isn't the President Israel Was Hoping For

In Tel Aviv on Monday, Donald Trump will not receive a gleaming gold medal or join a boisterous sword dance. But his 28-hour stop in the Holy Land should have been the highlight of his first foreign tour as president of the United States. Israel’s ruling right-wing greeted his election with glee, and for good reason: The new president seemed ready to fulfill its deepest wishes.
During Trump’s campaign and transition, he vowed to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. (The United States, like most countries, keeps its mission in Tel Aviv to avoid wading into the dispute over the contested holy city.) He nominated a U.S. ambassador, bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, who supports Israeli settlements—not only in his words, but as the president of a foundation that donated millions to Beit El, an ideological settlement outside of Ramallah. Trump said he would be open to a one-state solution, a statement that seemed to casually discard decades of bipartisan U.S. policy. Several hawkish lawmakers even started drafting a bill to annex large chunks of the West Bank, a step that would permanently foreclose a two-state outcome. “The era of a Palestinian state is over,” Naftali Bennett, the leader of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, cheered at the time. “Obama is history. Now we have Trump,” Several months later, though, Trump arrives to bitter disappointment from his biggest fans in Israel. In his first talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, he asked him to “hold back” on settlement construction. The embassy hasn’t been moved yet—nor will it, at least in the near future. A group of settlers asked to meet with Trump on his visit, and were quickly rebuffed. Instead, there is enthusiastic talk from Washington about reviving the defunct peace process and striking what Trump calls “the ultimate deal” with the Palestinians.Miri Regev, Israel’s populist culture miTrump’s about-face has become a gnawing political headache for Netanyahu, who, according to people close to him, spent the past few weeks in a state of mild panic, worried that his right-wing allies will blame him for the mercurial president’s metamorphosis. “The question is not Trump. The question is Benjamin Netanyahu,” Bennett told me. “I think we’re blowing it, this huge opportunAs ever, the crisis stems from Netanyahu's conservatism—a prime minister known as “Mr. Status Quo” does not want to take dramatic steps in the occupied territories. Though he remains skeptical of a two-state solution, he fears the diplomatic consequences of a major push to expand settlements.He showed up for that first White House meeting without his own diplomatic plan. The Palestinians moved aggressively to fill the void, both in direct talks and through their Arab allies in Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf. Critics say Netanyahu hasn’t pushed on the embassy issue, either; Fox News reported last week that he even privately urged Trump not to move it, out of fear of the consequences. (His office denied the report.)
For now, at least, things will move slowly. Trump is not expected to announce a new round of talks, while plans for a trilateral meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were quickly scuttled. Both sides are instead focused on small-bore items. The Palestinians have presented Trump withan economic wish list, including new industrial zones and a resort on the Dead Sea. The Gulf states have offered Israel its own economic incentives in return, like overflight rights for the national carrier, El Al.