Trump allies defend him to Israelis anxious over Iran deal

JERUSALEM - American allies of President Donald Trump this week defended him to an Israeli public anxious about a US interim deal with Iran and White House criticism that together appeared to signal fissures in Israel's decades-old alliance with Washington.

The US-Israeli relationship has been on a roller coaster, from the early confidence they shared after their joint attack on Iran to public disagreements between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to end the four-month-old war.

Netanyahu and many other Israelis see a risk that Trump's memorandum of understanding with Iran will empower a state they regard as their deadliest enemy and constrict their ability to respond to threats from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

They sense the US alliance – long the bedrock of Israel's strategic approach – is under strain as opinion polls show Americans increasingly unhappy with Israel and their strongest champion in Washington appears to be turning away.

"The United States and Israel have an unbreakable bond," Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, said on June 21 after acknowledging there was an "enormous level of anxiety about the relationship."

He spoke at a foreign policy conference in Jerusalem where concerns about the state of the US-Israel alliance dominated many of the discussions.

Mark Levin, a conservative Fox News commentator and longtime Trump supporter who has broken with the president over the Iran deal, told the audience that while he did not like the agreement and believed that the "Iranian regime" had to be destroyed, he nevertheless praised Trump for what he said was the president's support for liberty, religious freedom, Christianity and Judaism.

Alongside their concerns about the wording of the Iran deal, Israelis worry about Trump's insistence on Israel agreeing a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and his language responding to Netanyahu's resistance to those agreements.

In recent weeks Trump has called Netanyahu "f****** crazy," lectured Israel that "you don't have to knock an apartment down every time you're looking for somebody" and publicly pondered asking Syria to replace Israeli troops in Lebanon.

Vice-President J.D. Vance also struck a more critical tone, saying "Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time," adding later that not all criticism of Israel should be dismissed as antisemitism.

The fact such sharp views are emanating from Trump's Republican Party is especially worrying for many Israelis, with US Democrats far more vocally critical of Israel than in previous years.

Sid Rosenberg, a prominent conservative New York radio host, told Israelis that for all their concerns about Trump, he was the best option for them. "You could have J.D. Vance. Good luck with that," he said, after acknowledging that "a lot of people in Israel are very, very upset" with the president.

While large majorities of Republicans 50 and older view Israel positively, younger conservative Americans have grown more critical, a Pew Research Center poll from late March showed.

Some 57 per cent of Republicans aged 18-49 have an unfavourable opinion of Israel, up from 50 per cent a year previously.

Many Americans, including prominent Democratic politicians, were outraged by the scale of death and devastation in Israel's military campaign in Gaza after the deadly Hamas attack of Oct 7, 2023, on Israeli communities and the taking of hostages.

Israel has also faced criticism over the joint decision to launch the war on Iran, a conflict that is deeply unpopular in the United States, including among Trump's conservative base.

Victoria Coates, vice president at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and Trump's deputy national security adviser during his first term, suggested on June 22 that the US-Israeli relationship was strained but expressed confidence that the leaders of both countries would bring it "back on track".

A day earlier, speaking at the conference, she had said that recent days had been "challenging for all of us, to put it mildly," but that there had been plenty of "great and good things" in Trump's second term "for which we can and should be grateful."

Until recently, Trump had been seen in Israel as its strongest-ever White House ally after his decision in his first term to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and his leading diplomatic role securing the release of hostages last year.

Two Israeli officials familiar with Netanyahu's thinking said the prime minister was not concerned that comments by Trump and Vance indicated any meaningful US policy changes such as slower arms deliveries.

Netanyahu believed the comments might be partly geared towards assuaging voters ahead of US midterm elections in November amid growing frustration over Israel and the war, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The anxiety in Israel has led some prominent figures to say it is time for the country to envisage a future without strong US support and to further build up its own military and technological capabilities.

Ohad Tal, chair of the US-Israel caucus in Israel's Parliament the Knesset, said Israelis needed to prepare for the day when there is a less supportive US president "and this is why we have to be much more independent and we have to forge new alliances." REUTERS