Israel’s Trump Delusion: Why Netanyahu’s Ambition to Remake the Middle East Is Unlikely to Succeed

By Shalom Lipner

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election could not have come at a better time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. More than 13 months since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, Israel finds itself on a roll. Since the beginning of the year, Israel has assassinated much of the senior leadership of both Hamas and Hezbollah, decimated their ranks, and conducted precision strikes in Iran. At home, after seeing his approval rating hit rock bottom following October 7, Netanyahu has watched his popularity start to rebound.

Now Netanyahu and his government see a rare opportunity for a comprehensive realignment of the Middle East. Resisting calls for a truce, Netanyahu—with potent stimulus from his extreme right flank—is pledging to double down on his pursuit of “total victory,” however long that might take. In addition to continuing the Gaza war and laying the groundwork for a protracted Israeli security presence in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, this narrative involves imposing a new order on Lebanon; neutralizing Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen; and ultimately, eliminating the Islamic Republic’s nuclear threat. Some members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition also aspire to bury the prospects of a two-state solution forever. At the same time, Netanyahu thinks that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries will eventually agree to normalization with Israel. And with Trump returning to the White House, the prime minister is confident that the United States will support him.

This scheme is seductive and even carries a certain logic: after all, Trump is viewed in Jerusalem as a staunch patron of Israel who is far less concerned about international norms and institutions—and the need for restraint—than his Democratic predecessor. Moreover, the president-elect has already telegraphed plans to resume his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and prioritize the expansion of the Abraham Accords.

But these assumptions—both about what is possible through force of arms and the degree to which the Trump White House will back it—are dangerously overstated. Tactical battlefield successes, in the absence of political or diplomatic arrangements, cannot bring lasting security. Israel could find itself mired in multiple hot wars and responsible for the welfare of a huge population of noncombatants in both Gaza and Lebanon. Winning over the support of the Arab world will take more than the defeat of Hamas and Hezbollah and will be improbable as long as Israel’s current right-wing government is in power. Meanwhile, Trump is highly unpredictable, and Israel, having gambled on his support, could find itself isolated on the world stage. In his drive for permanent victory, the prime minister may discover that he has made Israel’s situation more tenuous.

THE BIG IDEA

Trump’s return to power arrives as regional dynamics finally appear to be going Israel’s way. After being blindsided by Hamas’s heinous attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have, during more than a year of intense operations in Gaza, laid waste to its command structure and almost completely degraded its capabilities. The 24 battalions that Hamas boasted before the war began have all been put out of commission, as have considerable sections of the group’s tunnel network. With the killing of Yahya Sinwar in October, the probability that Hamas could mount another such massacre is virtually zero.

Israel has done similar damage to Hezbollah, once feared as the central and most powerful arm of Iran’s “axis of resistance.” In addition to assassinating Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, along with much of the group’s upper echelon, Israel’s land incursion into Lebanon has massively depleted Hezbollah’s huge stockpile of missiles and rockets. Meanwhile, Israeli planes have made frequent sorties over Syria and even bombed Houthi infrastructure in Yemen, more than 1,000 miles away. Israeli commando units have captured high-value assets in Lebanon and Syria. Finally, there is Iran itself, whose military complexes were significantly impaired by Israel’s precision strikes in October: in an operation involving three waves of aircraft, Israel incapacitated a nuclear weapons research laboratory, ballistic missile production facilities, air defense systems, and ground-to-ground launchers across several regions of Iran.

Before the U.S. elections in November, these military gains came at the cost of growing friction with the United States. Although the Biden administration sustained Israel militarily, economically, and diplomatically—including a first-ever wartime visit to Israel by a U.S. president—it showed frequent disapproval of the way Israel was conducting the war, and U.S. President Joe Biden was often directly at odds with Netanyahu. There were continual clashes over the Netanyahu government’s lack of enthusiasm for cease-fire negotiations and its reluctance to expand the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza. For the prime minister, an election victory by Vice President Kamala Harris portended even more tension with Washington, perhaps even growing limits on U.S. backing for Israel.

By contrast, Netanyahu and his allies envisage that the incoming Trump administration will bring unqualified U.S. support for Israel. That assumption has given new fuel to the most expansionist—or even messianic—aspirations of Israel’s ascendant right wing, which hopes that, once the IDF obliterates its adversaries, all the naysayers might recognize the futility of trying to defeat Israel and, instead, pursue peace with it. Israel will strengthen its grip over the West Bank and, according to some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners, Gaza. Everybody—or at least all the important regional players—will live happily ever after.

As for the mechanics, Netanyahu’s coterie intends to keep on grinding Hamas to a veritable pulp, however much destruction of Gaza that entails. Now, Israel’s leaders are also counting on the support of Trump, who advised Netanyahu in October to “do what you have to do” to finish the job. At the same time, the Israeli government has made almost no serious endeavor to plan for postwar governance in Gaza—where it has stymied efforts to reintroduce the Palestinian Authority—intimating that the IDF will stay on indefinitely. Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet are pushing spiritedly to encumber Gaza’s reconstruction and rebuild Jewish settlements in the strip, while also petitioning for annexation of the West Bank.

Israel is already seeking to leverage the decapitation of Hezbollah into a broader remaking of Lebanon. Anxieties over how a volatile Trump might engage on the issue—which he apparently perceives as a nuisance—are an impetus to move the process across the finish line before he takes office. Israel is consenting to a souped-up UN Security Council Resolution 1701—the 2006 resolution that was supposed to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in part by forcing Hezbollah north of the Litani River—that would enshrine the IDF’s freedom to operate in Lebanon if the agreement is violated. Israel also hopes that an invigorated Lebanese army could ultimately assert full authority over southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu and his government see a rare opportunity to realign the Middle East.

The linchpin of this bold project will be enlisting additional teammates to join Israel’s squad. Houthi piracy in the Red Sea has compelled the United States to join with the United Kingdom to launch missile strikes against Houthi strongholds in Yemen. The Israeli government is mindful of the broad international support that crucially came to its aid during Iran’s massive direct missile attack in April, when Israel’s protective umbrella was made up of not only France, the United Kingdom, and the United States but also, more remarkably, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel hopes to build on those precedents and expand that cooperation. In that vein, the United States and the UAE have figured prominently in Israeli thinking about an eventual international mission for Gaza (although the Emiratis have said that they will not participate unless invited formally by the Palestinians). Iran is another theater where Israel would prefer not to act alone. Although the scenario of a head-on, U.S.-led military confrontation with Iran—one that would culminate in the ruin of Tehran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the Islamic regime—has not been embraced by mainstream Israeli decision-makers, it nonetheless animates discussion among the far right.

In the final act, the Netanyahu government hopes that these convulsions will cause other regional powers to reach a permanent accommodation with Israel. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, they imagine, will lead the charge of Arab and Islamic rulers lining up to normalize relations. By this reckoning, Trump, who cultivated productive ties to the Saudis and their Gulf neighbors during his first administration, will be the ace up Israel’s sleeve. Coalition hard-liners such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wager that, with Washington letting the Israeli government more or less have its way, the Palestinians—bereft of their traditional sponsors and left with few remaining options—will be forced to accede to their terms. This would likely mean civil rights without political rights and leaving Israeli settlements untouched.

THE WAR FOR MORE WAR

To understand why the ambitions of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition have such potency right now, it is necessary to grasp how Trump is perceived in Israel. Many Israelis anticipate that the new U.S. administration—directed by a man whom Netanyahu once crowned “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”—will support their country unconditionally. Trump’s nomination to his foreign policy team of stalwart advocates of Israel, such as Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, former Governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, and Representative Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations, adds ballast to that notion.

Outside the United States, Israeli officials are hopeful that—beyond a green light from Trump—they might face only minimal resistance from other capitals in their plans to ratchet up pressure on Iran. In August, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom warned Tehran and its allies that they would hold them responsible if Iran chose to escalate further. Other reassuring signs have come from Israel’s regional partners, which are also threatened by Iran-sponsored aggression. Israeli officials have taken note of the fact that the Abraham Accords have withstood the past year of war, and they have followed persistent talk between U.S. and Saudi principals suggesting that Riyadh could eventually be persuaded to enter a deal.

Alongside these external considerations, Netanyahu is also under pressure to heed the wishes of his coalition, without whose backing he would lose office. Foremost among that chorus are Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, right-wing ideologues who were once believed too radical for conventional politics and who are demanding that Israel press on until all its nemeses are annihilated. Within a week of the U.S. election, Smotrich proclaimed that Trump’s return means that “2025 will, with God’s help, be the year of [Israeli] sovereignty in Judea and Samaria”—a designation for the West Bank. Their implacable insistence, which lives in symbiosis with Netanyahu’s political survival instincts, has become a continual roadblock to members of the security establishment who would prefer for the IDF to wrap up its offensive.

To a degree, these arguments have gained traction in Israel. A growing consensus has embraced the view that pre-October 7 approaches to Israeli security, such as “mowing the grass”—the notion that extremist groups could be contained by periodic IDF maneuvers—are inadequate. Many Israelis now conclude that, with society already fully mobilized, unrelenting war may be the best avenue to establish and maintain security. In recent months, additional momentum has come from the tactical successes of the IDF, which have whetted the public’s appetite for more. Dramatic gains against Hamas and Hezbollah over the past few months—flying in the face of Biden administration officials, who argued that ground invasions in Gaza and Lebanon were doomed—have lent support to those who want to destroy every last trace of those organizations, regardless of the cost in civilian lives and the postponement of peace.

Given the haplessness of the opposition in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Netanyahu has been able to continue the war without much challenge. Many of the country’s usual gatekeepers, including the attorney general and the director of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, have been put on the defensive. For the prime minister, prolonged combat operations serve the dual objective of repairing broken Israeli deterrence and deflecting attention from his dismal performance on—and after—October 7. Even protests by the families of Israeli captives in Gaza have posed little obstacle. For months, these families have—with Biden’s strong personal encouragement—been calling for a hostage deal, and they also enjoy appreciable popular support. But Netanyahu has been able to count on his right flank, along with pushback from those who oppose Hamas’s conditions for a hostage release, to overcome these pockets of resistance. And with the advent of Trump, it is assumed, the United States will put less, rather than more, pressure on Israel to close out its military campaigns.

MISREADING MAGA

But Netanyahu and his allies are underrating the myriad problems that undermine these grand ambitions. For one thing, Iran and its surrogates will not disappear. Already, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are demonstrating resilience and beginning to regroup. They have substantial leftover firepower and remain capable of pounding Israel daily with hundreds of rockets, ballistic missiles, and drones that kill Israelis and destroy their property. Even as these groups fail to overwhelm Israel’s air defenses, they have succeeded in wreaking general havoc, constantly scrambling Israelis to bomb shelters, and disrupting the flow of Israelis’ lives. Dreams that these factions might imminently capitulate are fantastical. And the expectation that Iranians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Yemenis are going to rise up immediately and throw off the yoke of their brutal oppressors seems more like wishful thinking than informed analysis.

As important, any grandiose Israeli designs for the region will not materialize without significant help from Washington. And at a time when Israel’s dependence on the United States has never been more apparent, Israeli assumptions about Trump’s unwavering patronage appear naive. Notably, the president-elect’s shout-out to “Arab American” and “Muslim American” voters for facilitating his victory could augur a recalibration that—along with Trump’s general aversion to wars and U.S. military commitments overseas—finds the incoming administration more skeptical of Israeli prerogatives.

After all, Trump ended his first term hurling epithets at Netanyahu, and he has made it abundantly clear that he has no desire for Israel to drag on hostilities. When the two leaders met in Florida in July, Trump told Netanyahu to complete the war before Biden leaves office. Backers of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank are among Trump’s biggest supporters, but they may soon be reminded that he feels little obligation to their agenda. It is worth recalling that “Peace to Prosperity”—Trump’s short-lived 2020 Israeli-Palestinian peace plan—countenanced the eventual creation of a Palestinian state and was assailed by settler leaders for “endangering the existence of the State of Israel.”

Trump’s general foreign policy positions could be equally problematic for Israel. After telling journalists in September that “we have to make a deal” with Tehran, he went on to comment a month later that he would “stop the suffering and destruction in Lebanon.” His declared reluctance to contributing U.S. forces and funds abroad heralds a major sea change for Israel, where the Pentagon has just deployed a sophisticated THAAD antiballistic missile battery along with 100 U.S. troops to operate it. Even if Trump does not withdraw the resources that Biden has consigned to Israel, his isolationist tendencies may portend reduced support in the future, thereby constraining the IDF’s freedom to maneuver.

Other international powers are showing even less patience for Israeli truculence. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—which did not join in Israel’s defense umbrella for Iran’s second missile attack in October—have all restricted weapons exports to Israel, citing concerns over compliance with international law. (In October, the Biden administration also threatened to limit arms transfers if humanitarian-aid deliveries to Gaza did not improve, though it has not yet taken such action.) Historically unfriendly forums for Israel, such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court, have also weighed in on the subject of its present conduct, including, on November 21, the ICC’s approval of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. This growing international pressure could have negative consequences for the IDF’s operational autonomy, as well as for the ability of Israelis to engage in commerce and to travel overseas.

Alongside these considerations is Israel’s own domestic situation, which Netanyahu may think is more favorable to him than it is. After more than a year of relentless warfare, a fatigued Israeli public knows that more than 100 hostages are still imprisoned in Gaza and tens of thousands more remain displaced from their homes. IDF reservists have spent hundreds of days in uniform, away from their families and livelihoods. The rage they feel toward those who shirk that responsibility—predominantly, the ultra-Orthodox (the haredim), whose representatives in the Knesset are key members of Netanyahu’s coalition—is palpable. For many of those on active duty, the enthusiasm to carry out the government’s directive is fading.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s senior staff has been implicated in the extortion of IDF officers and apparent forgery of official protocols to cover up government misdemeanors. One of his spokesmen has been indicted for endangering national security on suspicion of falsifying and leaking classified intelligence in order to validate the cabinet’s intransigence on a hostage deal. And the prime minister himself, having exhausted all appeals, must finally face the court in his own corruption trial. He is scheduled to testify before year’s end.

On November 5, Netanyahu dismissed Gallant—a former general and the Biden administration’s most trusted Israeli interlocutor—and replaced him with a politician who lacks military credentials. A purely political move, it was evidently intended to placate Netanyahu’s haredi coalition partners, who have threatened to leave the government unless legislation is fast-tracked to exempt their population from IDF service, a law that Gallant (along with much of the Israeli public) scorns. The primacy that Netanyahu accords self-preservation over national security and even social cohesion is increasingly demoralizing the broad swath of the population that make up the backbone of Israel’s citizen army and modern economy.

COLLIDING WITH REALITY

Notwithstanding its battlefield triumphs, Israel faces genuine peril. Its ability to successfully end the current conflicts will depend heavily on how Netanyahu manages relations with the next U.S. president. Untethered to any considerations of reelection, Trump may be even more ready to follow his most transactional instincts. Netanyahu will need to walk a high wire, circumventing any grudges that Trump may still harbor and moving adeptly to bring their goals into alignment. Ironically, Netanyahu’s most formidable obstacle could prove to be the same right-wing parties that are keeping him in power.

At present, Israeli forces risk sinking deeper into Gaza and Lebanon, both of which, despite Israel’s military dominance, show signs of becoming Vietnam-style quagmires. Hezbollah has said it would attack Tel Aviv again if Israel continues to attack Beirut. Iran has vowed fierce revenge for Israel’s retribution. Meanwhile, the IDF lacks fresh soldiers and cannot, for now at least, overcome debilitating shortages of both offensive and defensive ammunition without further assistance. For now, the hostages—nobody knows for certain how many of them are still alive—remain in Gaza, and the displaced are unable to return to their villages in the north, despite Israel’s ongoing incursion in Lebanon.

Israel’s defense chiefs have informed Netanyahu that they have achieved all their objectives in Gaza and Lebanon. They support making concessions to repatriate the captives from Gaza and terminate the conflict in Lebanon. The IDF and the Shin Bet are confident that they can insulate Israel from future acts of aggression from Hamas and Hezbollah. That evaluation conforms comfortably with the thinking of both Trump—who wants quiet, quickly—and Biden, who would like to see a cease-fire in Gaza and a deal in Lebanon before the end of his presidency.

On one level, it appears that Netanyahu also wants to move in this direction. According to reports, in the wake of the U.S. election, he, too, is now toiling to deliver a cease-fire with Hezbollah, as a “gift” to Trump: doing so now, the reasoning goes, would allow Israel to focus its labors on the more serious threat from Iran and to enlist Trump—who famously pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018—in putting Tehran’s feet to the fire. But any such move by Netanyahu will be opposed by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who interfere incessantly with hostage negotiations and have said they will topple the prime minister if he consents to any truce. Their maneuvering to impose long-term Israeli control over Gaza and the West Bank runs counter to any efforts to reduce the IDF’s footprint in those areas and could situate Netanyahu’s Israel on a collision course with Trump.

The president-elect will be similarly frustrated to discover that making any headway with Saudi Arabia will be out of the question, probably for the duration of the current Israeli government. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir will never commit to paying the minimum price that Riyadh demands—some kind of pathway to Palestinian statehood. From their perspective, although the Abraham Accords are nice to have, nothing can compare with cementing Israeli control over the entire “land of the Patriarchs.” Moreover, Saudi Arabia may have very little inclination to antagonize Iran, as shown by the cordial reception given to Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, by Arab states—including Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, and Oman, as well as Saudi Arabia.

Netanyahu will have to read the tea leaves correctly. He needs to seize the moment and wind down Israel’s wars before they begin to cause more harm than good and—no less fatefully—create a rift with Trump. If Netanyahu can stand up to his coalition partners, he might still be able to end the conflicts and leave Trump the clean desk he asked for. But time is short. And if the prime minister chooses instead to run out the clock, he will face the impossible task of trying to satisfy Trump and, at the same time, appeasing Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Israel should brace itself for more turbulence ahead.