Trump in the Middle East: Dark clouds over the current honeymoon with Israel?

By: Ricardo Israel - 18/05/2025

He visited three countries in the Persian Gulf, or rather the Arabian Gulf, sleeping one night in each one and being escorted by the respective aircraft upon entering each airspace. At US bases, he told troops that his priority was ending conflicts, rather than starting them. It was a success for Trump, overshadowed by his acceptance of the temporary loan or permanent donation of a Qatari presidential plane, with all the security concerns that accompany it, thereby tripping himself up.

Did he need to go to Israel? The truth is, no, as there is daily contact and he has received Benjamin Netanyahu several times. In fact, Israel announced it was postponing the massive troop deployment to Gaza so as not to jeopardize Trump's trip. It was even a good thing he didn't travel, as it would have confused the main geopolitical objective of the trip, which was to restore the centrality of Saudi Arabia in US foreign policy, traditionally as important an ally as Israel, since the price of oil and, above all, the health of the dollar as the world's most important currency depend on it, since all fuel transactions worldwide are made in that currency, making it also an instrument of power for the superpower.

In that sense, those who said it was just business were wrong, since every presidential trip to Washington and many other countries mixes politics and economics. In this case, the Abraham Accords were proposed as the central policy of the Trump administration and, therefore, of the United States today, which begins by recovering the point at which those Pacts were left during his previous administration.

As advanced as Saudi Arabia's relationship with Israel was and remains, the goal was not only to incorporate it into the Agreement, but also the Palestinians. If one recalls the situation, there was an offer to the Palestinian Authority to join the negotiations, offering $50 billion as a stimulus. However, the offer was rejected by President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), yet another rejection, yet another in a long list of missed opportunities by that leadership.

In those days of 2020, the prince regent of Saudi Arabia, while recognizing that there was already a close relationship with Israel on the issue of security and the danger posed by Iran, pointed out something that he has repeated now, that there could be no public agreement and a Peace Treaty, while the Palestinian issue was pending, above all, because of the competition with Tehran, as respective leaders of Sunnis and Shiites for leadership of the Muslim world, which has not changed, despite the fact that the relationship with Israel, like all the countries that have signed agreements, survived the current war in good shape, despite the fact that Iran activated the so-called "axis of resistance", its proxies in different countries, so much so that Israel's current war has taken place on 7 fronts.

Despite the rejection of those Abraham Accords by the Democrats, the Biden administration continued the idea of incorporating Saudi Arabia, so much so that Hamas leaders acknowledged during a visit to Turkey in 2024 that Iran's decision to give the green light to the invasion on 7-X was decisively influenced by the possibility that a commitment between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be signed in the White House, as speculated in the media.

Therefore, the task was not only to incorporate Saudi Arabia, but also the precondition that the Palestinians would be. And although Netanyahu rightly says that the Trump administration is the most pro-Israeli he has ever known, this issue could cast a shadow over the honeymoon. Trump, like other presidents such as Carter and Clinton, has spoken of a comprehensive peace for the region, and everything indicates that, to achieve this, he could incorporate the Palestinian state into his final proposal. This is undoubtedly a problem for Netanyahu, who argues that the October 7 invasion and the Palestinian Authority's lack of condemnation of it make it the wrong time, as it would be tantamount to rewarding the person who started this war.

Personally, I am also convinced of something that is not minor in this equation, that Trump legitimately aspires to the Nobel Peace Prize, which he could have obtained for the Pacts during his previous administration, but as a political award that it is from the moment it is awarded by a commission, not the academic one of other Nobel Prize winners, but a political one, appointed by the Norwegian parliament, in which a total rejection of what it represents surely prevails, unlike Obama who received it as soon as he took office, when he had not yet made any decisions, neither good nor bad.

This is a real cloud over Israel's relationship with the US, although there are two things without doubt. First, Trump will likely wait for the outcome of the massive Israeli troop influx into Gaza to try (will he be able to this time?) to finish off Hamas, since so far he has not been able to achieve two of his objectives: to finish off Hamas and to recover all the hostages. Furthermore, it would be very difficult for Arab countries or the Palestinian Authority to become interested in governing and rebuilding Gaza as long as Hamas maintains the power it still holds, despite having already lost the war and ceasing to be a military threat. Second, much of the future will depend on Iran not acquiring its atomic bomb, and where, short of an Israeli military attack, the US will need to succeed in convincing it to give it up, just as it did with Ukraine and Belarus in the 1990s, when the USSR collapsed.

It's a good time for Trump, considering the situation in Ukraine is not going well. The idea behind the Abraham Accords, that trade is an effective tool for peace in the Middle East, was rewarded on this trip with the announcement of $600 billion in Saudi investment, even though that amount had already been announced as soon as Trump took office. Qatar signed up with $243.5 billion, to which must be added $1.4 trillion from the Emirates, in addition to the sale of advanced weapons to the three, some of which only Israel possesses in that part of the world. With $142 billion committed by Saudi Arabia alone, such is the depth of the fear of the ayatollahs (and their Houthis).

For the US, the recovery of the privileged alliance it had for decades with Saudi Arabia is an important achievement, especially since that relationship cracked, first during the Obama administration with its decision to distance itself from the Middle East, and then under Biden, who made the mistake of calling Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the current prince regent, a murderer, saying he would turn him into a "pariah." He then had to make a pilgrimage to Riyadh to apologize, without achieving his goal of collaborating with Washington's oil policy, concerned about the rise in prices.

In any case, the visit also served as an opportunity for the Saudis to showcase to the world their ambitious modernization project, Project 2030—not the UN's, but their own modernization. With the experience of the Shah of Persia before the ayatollahs, they know they must do so gradually so as not to provoke resistance from a traditional society. It's a project, similar to that of the Emirates or Qatar, which essentially involves preparing for a future where oil will lose its current importance. In this regard, they showcased such spectacular advances as futuristic cities with minimal pollution, currently under construction, and with new AI technologies.

The trip also provided evidence that Qatar and Saudi Arabia appear to be once again in agreement on the Middle East, after years of estrangement due to the closeness Qatar acquired with Iran through shared interests in the gas issue, and, above all, with its declared support for terrorist movements, which Riyadh has distanced itself from, given that the modernization process led by MBS has sharply diminished the prominence Wahhabism once had. In any case, Qatar has acted skillfully in manipulating the US, having had its largest military base outside of Germany there since the war against Saddam Hussein. By incorporating mediation and negotiation as a foreign policy strategy into its Constitution, it has achieved international prominence. This is in addition to buying goodwill with its generous donations to elite US universities and its investment in major media outlets around the world, such as the Spanish newspaper El País. In any case, it was Israel itself that opened the door to its current influence over Hamas by agreeing to directly deliver money to Palestinian groups in Gaza some years ago. Nor did he denounce to the American public the role that Qatar played in the pro-Hamas protests.

The storm cloud that could reach Jerusalem from the US, like Trump's proposal for a tourist area in Gaza, is made in the vacuum created by the fact that there is still no real political plan from Israel for the day after the war or for a Gaza without Hamas, since similarly to all other wars, Israel does not start them, but wins them, only that the military triumph is overshadowed by the lack of a political plan, increased by the great ethical doubts caused by the situation of the prime minister, awaiting a conviction or an acquittal that does not come, since there is still a war.

As much as Israel and the US share objectives, if this relationship between the Gulf and Washington continues, there may be a joint proposal, which, once the issue of the Iranian bomb is resolved, could find receptive ears given the lack of an Israeli initiative for Gaza, creating a rift. Even in the absence of a political plan, which, in my opinion, should be an alliance with the Sunni Arab countries so that they take charge of the administration of Gaza and Israel of its security. If Israel manages to distance Hamas from a future government, the project that Saudi Arabia and the US could pursue for a Palestinian state could find support throughout the world in general, and in the Middle East in particular, with everyone understanding that nothing is possible if Hamas remains in power and if Iran obtains its atomic bomb. In any case, it's more realistic for Israel to limit its objective to ensuring that Hamas no longer poses a threat to the government, either to itself or to its own people, since it's virtually impossible for it to disappear completely, just as it hasn't happened with ISIS or Al Qaeda.

The US's political comeback in alignment with the Gulf Arab countries was also evident in the lifting of sanctions on Syria, in Trump's meeting with former jihadist and current president Ahmad al-Sharaa, and even his invitation to seek an agreement with Israel and join the Abrahamic Covenants—a gamble, admittedly, given the danger that jihadists might seek to repress the country's ethnic and religious minorities, including Israel's Druze allies, from power. Ultimately, Washington gave a virtually blank check, but from the perspective of regaining US influence, it was in complete agreement with the current position of the Arab League. It is also a test of the alliance with Saudi Arabia, where it is being asked to be an alternative to Turkey, which replaced Iran as the most important external power in Syria. Turkey also reached a historic agreement with the main Kurdish political party to abandon armed struggle, with the question of whether they will be obeyed or followed by the Kurds of Iraq and Syria, who enjoy, for practical purposes, autonomy in those countries.

Syria is undoubtedly another element where differences could arise between Israel and the US, given that Israel could enter Syria in conflict with a NATO country like Turkey, given that Israel is currently acting militarily to prevent Syria from becoming a new Lebanon against Israel, in addition to the support it provides to the autonomous Kurds and Druze, the latter declaredly under its protection south of Damascus, at the request of the Israeli Druze, of outstanding loyalty and service in the armed forces.

The summary of the trip is clear: Trump's most successful international presence in the world today is clearly the Gulf and the idea of promoting Abraham. Incidentally, despite the storm clouds, for this success to continue, Israel remains key, given that Saudi Arabia and the US need it—that is, in this trio of Arab countries, the Jewish state, and Washington, they all need each other. The US needs both for its project of comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia needs Israeli support for the approval of a Security Treaty with the US and the sale of advanced weapons in Congress, hopefully with bipartisan support. Moreover, without Saudi Arabia, there would be no end to the Arab-Israeli conflict for Israel.

What's missing? No less than two objectives, declared by Israel the very day it was invaded: the complete defeat of Hamas and the return of all hostages, and, above all, preventing Iran from obtaining its atomic bomb, whether through US pressure or Israeli bombing. In other words, the decapitation of the serpent that has been behind much of the region's misfortune and the main sponsor of global terrorism.

For Israel to succeed, it must address its lack of a real political plan. In my opinion, perhaps the last person to have one, though I can't quite put it into words, was Ariel Sharon, before his crippling attack. His actions speak for themselves, such as his voluntary withdrawal from Gaza, taking all the Jews with him, both the living and the dead buried there, and using the army to forcibly remove those who didn't want to, including those who suffered the same fate in Sinai after the agreement with Egypt.

Everything pointed to the fact that, using the 1949 Green Line as a de facto border, he would put Israel behind the anti-terrorist Security Wall he was building, and that, even if it wasn't contemplated, the Palestinian leaders would face the need to create the Arab state they had rejected in the UN partition. Surely, there would be a territorial negotiation afterwards, where the new Israeli settlements, although built illegally, would be exchanged for an equivalent, the continuity between the West Bank and Gaza, to give viability to the future Palestinian state. Or perhaps the differences between Fatah and Hamas were so great that the new country would be divided in two, Gaza and Palestine, as happened between West Pakistan (present-day Pakistan) and East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) after a war with India in 1971.

For Israel, success also lies in extricating itself from Gaza, and for me, the path is for the Sunni Arab countries to take responsibility by supporting the Palestinian Authority, which is currently unpopular among Palestinians and mired in corruption and with an aging leadership. At 89 years old, with Abu Mazen in charge, it lacks legitimacy, having evaded elections for too many years, which it would lose to Hamas. Alone, it is a drifting boat, also frightened by fundamentalist brutality, but it has done much to bury the hopes that Oslo raised years ago.

Israel must continue searching for the Palestinian partner for peace it has not found, and perhaps this would be an opportunity to recruit the prominent family clans that collaborated in the protests against Hamas.

However, in conclusion, it would be worth asking whether it is in the world's interest, and not just Israel's, for Saudi Arabia to have weapons as advanced as F-35 jets, or for uranium to be enriched on its territory in its project to develop atomic energy for civilian use and fuel its ambitious Artificial Intelligence projects with non-oil energy, even if it is through American companies. The previous question should be complemented by another: what would happen if the alternative to the current monarchy were a radical Islamist takeover, for example, if the current modernization process were to fail in a country where Osama bin Laden was born. Also, as is currently happening, the Democratic alternative to Trump could be its most radical sectors, such as Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders, who, if they win, would also seek alliances other than Saudi Arabia and Israel.

For now, the Middle East continues to change, as do alliances, which is nothing new, so the only real security for Israel is to rely on itself and maintain its military superiority, for which today it needs the US. However, to achieve the ever elusive peace it must have a political plan, which it lacks, or else even friends will want to fill the void, and since Dante and the Divine Comedy (14th century), we know that the road to hell can also be paved with good intentions.

Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Law (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».