On the 78th anniversary of Israel’s founding, nothing quite sums up Israel’s status as a Trumpian vassal than the United States flags fluttering in the spring breeze alongside Israeli flags on the main highway leading to Jerusalem.
Each year, the highway is bedecked in the blue-and-white flag, flying proudly as the country celebrates Israel’s independence; only this year, the Zionist symbol is sharing prominence with the Stars and Stripes.
The US flags were no doubt installed in the expectation that US President Donald Trump would be making his way to Israel’s capital on Independence Day to receive his ludicrously made-up Israel Prize for his “unique contribution to the Jewish people” – in and of itself another example of the homage a vassal state pays to its protector.
But once it became clear that Trump would be more likely to travel this week to Islamabad than Jerusalem, any self-respecting sovereign nation would have removed the foreign flags at the entrance to its capital. What proud, independent state flies the flag of another country as part of its official Independence Day celebrations?
So, here’s the rub: under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrous leadership (his responsibility for October 7, 2023, can never be forgotten or forgiven), Israel has become totally subservient to Donald Trump. While the US flags on the Jerusalem highway provide a symbolic example of the state of relations between the two countries, Trump's recent social media posts provide a blunter, yet sharply accurate, portrayal of the US-Israel relationship.
Has Israel become America's loyal subject?
“Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer,” Trump wrote at the end of last week. “They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!”
This post was not just the midnight social media musings of a president bored in his bedroom. It was the master laying down the law to his pliant subjects.
The farcical session of Netanyahu’s security cabinet last week, when members were urgently summoned to a critical phone meeting, best exemplifies how Israel has become a bystander in matters directly relating to its own security. As the cabinet ministers waited for the prime minister to come on the line to brief them and discuss recent developments, news of Trump’s ceasefire announcement between Israel and Lebanon flashed up on their phones. The urgent meeting became irrelevant even before it started.
Now, Israel, of course, has always been dependent on the support of other nations throughout its history. As much as we like to portray ourselves as a nation that stands alone, the reality is that without the crucial backing of different countries at different times, the Jewish state would not exist.
From the very beginning, dating back to the 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 – partitioning Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, supported by 33 countries – to Czechoslovakia’s crucial deliveries of essential weapons, aircraft, and training during the 1948 War of Independence, Israel has always depended on allies for its survival.
Israel’s nuclear program, the ultimate guarantee of Israel’s safety in a hostile environment, was only made possible through the close relations Jerusalem shared with Paris in the early years of statehood, when France was Israel’s principal arms supplier. Following the 1967 Six Day War, the United States became Israel’s major supporter in the international arena, and has remained so ever since.
Remaining simultaneously autonomous and respectful
Back in the day, it was a given that whoever was Israel’s prime minister would ensure close and respectful relations with whoever was the president of the United States. Conversely, a commitment to Israel’s security, backed by unprecedented military aid packages, was a keystone of both Republican and Democratic administrations, even when there were tensions in the relationship.
Netanyahu, however, has deliberately broken the bipartisan support for Israel in the United States. Nicknamed “the angel of destruction” by former Likud premier Yitzhak Shamir, Netanyahu has lived up to this characterization, determinedly undermining Democratic support for Israel over the decades. His run-ins with president Bill Clinton were legendary, while he brazenly disrespected president Barack Obama by addressing the US Congress, at the invitation of its then-Republican speaker, to trash Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
Netanyahu’s close ties to Trump, and his persistent lobbying for the US to strike Tehran, have taken Israel’s alignment with the Republican Party to a new and, for Israel, dangerous level. Last month, Gallup released the results of its annual World Affairs survey, conducted just before the US-Israel war with Iran. It found that just 54% of US adults held a very or mostly favorable opinion of Israel, the lowest level recorded since 2000.
The survey also found an even more dramatic widening of the partisan divide: 83% of Republicans, compared to 48% of Independents and 33% of Democrats, expressed favorable views toward Israel. The 50-point gap between Republicans and Democrats is the largest ever recorded by a Gallup survey.
This gap will one day come to haunt Israel. Last week, the US Senate voted down a pair of resolutions to prevent sales of weapons and bulldozers to Israel, but the fact that 40 out of 47 Senate Democrats voted in favor of one of the resolutions demonstrated a substantive shift in the party’s approach to Israel.
A responsible Israeli leader would recognize that Trump will not be president of the United States forever and that the Democrats will one day return to power, and act accordingly to regain this slipping bipartisan support. But Netanyahu will never do this.
And so, the real hope this Independence Day is that come election day later this year, Israeli voters will throw Netanyahu out and end this dangerous vassalage.
The writer is a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.