Four years ago, when President Donald Trump was elected 45th US president, it was unclear how his foreign policy might affect Israel’s security.
Now, as he runs against Democratic candidate Joe Biden, it’s clear Trump’s policy is a mix of impulse and calculation. Where the two meet is always the hard part.
Trump came at a time when the Middle East was being ravaged by conflict, with the Syrian civil war having killed hundreds of thousands already.
ISIS was turning the region upside down and a wave of stabbing attacks was taking place in Israel.
The Middle East was on fire, and analysts were concerned a reactionary US president would add more fuel.
Trump likes to announce his decision, big or small, over his favorite medium: Twitter. With or without prior consultation with senior officials and experts in his administration. Many of those decisions have had a significant impact on security in the region, including in Israel.
The day he was elected I asked the question “So what can the Middle East and Israel, specifically, expect from President Trump?”
In Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Trump’s administration was a radical departure from the traditional role Washington used to play between the two sides.
He kept several campaign promises, including recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy there.
The president also recognized the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory and legitimized settlements widely considered illegal under international law.
Trump also announced a new “peace plan” between Israel and the Palestinians – which ostensibly ignored Palestinian requests – dealing a blow to their dreams of statehood that would see Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 borders.
Lastly, with help from his administration, Israel has normalized ties with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan. Others are on the way, Trump promised.
Trump’s supporters, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, say he’s been the best friend Israel has ever had.
But is that really true? Or is it just another partisan gesture toward the Republicans from Netanyahu?
Four years later, the Syrian civil war continues to rage on, aided in large part by Russia and Iran, while ISlS has crumbled into small Islamist cells intent on continuing the bloodshed in Syria and Iraq.
More relevant to Israel, Iran has broken free of the nuclear deal after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, allowing it to continue to work on its ballistic missile arsenal and embolden Iranian proxies like Hezbollah to strengthen their foothold in the Syrian Golan.
Since the US withdrawal, Iran has been carrying out its own “war between wars” campaign, using proxies to carry out attacks, as well as their own forces, taking out US military assets such as a Global Hawk drone in 2019.
Washington’s targeted killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani at the beginning of the year led to fears of a regional war.
Closer to Israel’s borders, Trump’s peace plan, along with the shuttering of the US consulate in east Jerusalem and the PLO mission in Washington, has pushed frustrated Palestinians to the sidelines and increased their despair about achieving independence.
Trump’s cutting of American funding to UNRWA even led senior IDF officers to warn that the aid being stopped “is a big blow to Palestinians” and that the military was “concerned that if the schools aren’t funded the youth will go out and carry out attacks.”
And attacks there were. In the West Bank Palestinian youths threw stones, stabbed and shot at soldiers and civilians. There were also thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip. Forty Israelis were killed between January 2017 until now.
The normalization deals with the Gulf states, though praised across the board, has also left Israel’s defense establishment concerned the deals were made without taking Israel’s security into consideration.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz has accused Netanyahu of knowing about the sale of F-35 fighter jets to the UAE during negotiations but kept it hidden.
Gantz has rushed to Washington twice and hosted his American counterpart, Mark Esper, since the inking of the deal and signed an agreement that ensures Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME) in the region.
Though it is unclear what exactly was agreed between the two allies, the fact that the Israeli prime minister and US president did not involve the one government body that should have been involved from the start is worrisome, to say the least.
WHAT WILL Biden do for Israel’s security?
First off, Israel will not top his list of important issues, choosing instead to focus on matters concerning the US public: healthcare and the economy – two issues that have been made number one priorities by the pandemic.
Nevertheless, Israel will not be ignored by the former vice president, who was involved in the 2016 negotiations between the two allies that cemented a $38 billion, 10-year MoU for defense aid – the largest military aid package in US history.
Biden’s campaign has vowed to “guarantee” Israel’s QME and America’s “unbreakable commitment to Israel’s security.”
Unlike Trump’s unilateralism, Biden is expected to bring back the “old” American brokership to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for the creation of a “viable” Palestinian state where Palestinians “should be free to govern themselves,” and opposes “unilateral action” from either side.
Would that reduce the attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers? Unlikely. But, Biden has made it clear he will fully support the Taylor Force Act, which withholds aid to the PA based on payments it makes to terrorists in Israeli jails.
Biden has also said “Palestinians need to end incitement in the West Bank and rocket attacks in Gaza” and that the leadership “must begin to level with their people about the legitimacy and permanence of Israel as a Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.”
On Iran, Israel considers Tehran’s nuclear program its No. 1 concern. According to intel, if the Islamic Republic does decide to fully renege on the agreement, it wouldn’t take long to produce enough fissure material to make a nuclear bomb.
Biden has signaled he will try to bring Iran back into the deal and that the sanctions placed on the country could eventually be eased. Nevertheless, he has acknowledged there’s no guarantee Iran would return to compliance with the agreement.
Netanyahu has been one of the loudest critics of the deal. Although IDF officers and defense experts were concerned about some elements of the JCPOA, many believed Israel was better off when the deal was alive and Iran was adhering to it.
Should Biden win, he may only have a short time to bring Iran back to the agreement before hard-liners, including members of the IRGC, who oppose any engagement with the West, are expected to win Iran’s upcoming presidential elections.
And should that happen, Israel will not be any better off.
Nevertheless, no matter who wins the US election, Israel has to remember one thing: When it comes to its security, Israel has to be able to defend itself, by itself, at any given time. At the very least, Washington will continue to reinforce that.