Let no one say that Donald Trump has lost his edge. His speech Wednesday evening, amid the roiling violence in the Gaza Strip, shows he’s still got it, whatever it is.
In Florida, the former president and GOP presidential front-runner blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a supposed disagreement over a 2020 U.S. missile strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. “I’ll never forget,” Trump said. “I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing.” He went on to praise Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that is allied with Hamas and Iran. “You know, Hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart.”
[Andrew Exum: Iran loses its indispensable man]
Trump understood that the comments would be buzzy and predicted that the press would freak out, but the more notable blowback came from other quarters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, one of Trump’s top rivals, attacked him. “Now is not the time to be attacking our ally,” he said. “Trump puts himself first.” Other conservative leaders also reacted with disgust. Trump’s campaign, feeling the heat, put out a statement yesterday insisting, “There was no better friend or ally of Israel than President Donald J. Trump,” and another an hour later outlining pro-Israel moves he’d made during his time in office.
But trying to assess Trump as either pro-Israel or anti-Israel—or, for that matter holding any other coherent policy stance—misses the point. Trump has no true allies or ideological commitments. He is reactive, driven by personal grievance, knee-jerk contrarianism, and admiration for strength and violence. In this case, that means bearing an old grudge against Netanyahu, opposing whatever Joe Biden is doing, and being impressed by the ruthlessness of Hamas’s attacks.
The result is a series of dizzying reversals. Biden and Netanyahu, who have been at odds throughout Biden’s presidency, are suddenly marching in lockstep. The president delivered a vigorous, fiery pro-Israel speech that drew praise even from some of his usual critics on the pro-Israel right. Meanwhile, Trump and Netanyahu, close pals during Trump’s term, are feuding. (Rolling Stone reports that Trump even wants Netanyahu “impeached,” which makes as little sense as you think it does.) DeSantis and the White House are now tag-teaming to criticize Trump.
[Read: Trump isn’t the president Netanyahu was hoping for]
The contrast here is not that Netanyahu is good or that Biden’s policy is necessarily wise. It’s that Biden’s reaction is driven by a coherent and consistent worldview and approach to policy and Trump’s is driven by pettiness.
Trump is not, in any practical sense, a supporter or friend of Hezbollah or Hamas. (It’s a good bet he’d be hard-pressed to really describe their motivations other than a hatred of Israel and of Jews.) This is in part because what impresses him is belligerence and force, which is why he has previously praised North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, among others.
It is also in part because friendship is irrelevant to Trump. This applies just as much to his relationship with Israel as it does to normal interpersonal relationships. He saw supporting the country as politically advantageous, just as he did brokering the Abraham Accords. Trump’s relationship with the Jewish people is similarly transactional. He’s made years of anti-Semitic remarks, and on Rosh Hashanah last month, he raged at American Jews for not supporting him for election after all he’d done for Israel. (He also is unable to recognize any distinction between Jews and the Israeli government.)
Trump’s anger at Netanyahu seems to stem from the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Netanyahu congratulated Biden for his victory. In recent days, Netanyahu has praised and thanked Biden for his steadfast support. Trump demands personal loyalty even though he doesn’t give it, and he acts out of transactionalism but is horrified when other politicians do the same.
[Franklin Foer: Biden will be guided by his Zionism]
Netanyahu’s actions here are obviously prudent. Netanyahu has clashed with Biden and with Barack Obama before him over policy questions, but for any Israeli leader to be too frosty to the president of the United States, Israel’s most important ally, would be statecraft malpractice. That’s especially true at a time of war, such as now. But Trump seems to want Netanyahu to spurn Biden, the actual president, in favor of himself, a private citizen with real legal troubles and a history of electoral struggles.
No country can formulate a careful long-term policy when a future president could do an about-face at any point in his term just because he feels personally slighted. The equivocation alienates allies, who hesitate to commit to any course that could change abruptly, and who don’t enjoy being harangued by the most powerful leader in the world. It gives aid and comfort to enemies such as Hezbollah, even if Trump reviles them personally and doesn’t materially aid their causes. As Trump’s first term in office demonstrated, this petty reactivity is a bad way to govern, and it is the only way he knows.
