From "understanding" and mutual affection to "distancing"... the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu fractures

In recent months, U.S.-Israeli disagreements are no longer managed behind closed doors, as the White House has traditionally preferred, but are increasingly surfacing on television screens and in newspaper headlines. President Donald Trump, whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu built his electoral narrative around as “the only man capable of dealing with him,” is no longer concealing his coolness. The question today is: Has Trump’s stance toward Netanyahu changed? And is Israel’s standing in Washington declining?

Dr. Shay Har Tzvi, head of the Department of International Affairs and the Middle East at the Institute for Policy and Strategy (IP) at Reichman University, notes in his analysis that the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has experienced a “deterioration,” manifested in a marked decline in the frequency of meetings and conversations, Trump’s refusal to express support for Netanyahu ahead of the Israeli elections, and public criticism by the U.S. president and his close associates of Netanyahu’s policies and conduct.

He points out that this represents a “departure from the approach previously adopted by the White House, which sought to downplay disagreements and resolve issues discreetly.”

Har Tzvi lists the issues on which Washington has made decisions “without prior, in-depth coordination” with the Prime Minister:

- Sharp criticism of the nationalistic terrorism committed by settlers against Palestinians, and Israel’s policy toward the Palestinian Authority.

In an article titled “The Hour of Sunset” in the newspaper Maariv, writer Avraham Ganor goes further, describing Netanyahu’s hasty visit to the United Nations General Assembly as “the shortest of his tenure as Prime Minister—a visit without a meeting with President Donald Trump and without a single significant meeting with a head of state.”

He adds: “However they package this visit, no glossy wrapper can successfully conceal the death struggle of Netanyahu’s term.”

Ganor concludes that “this shift in Trump’s stance toward Netanyahu should concern every Israeli and every Jew as such. The United States and Trump remain the most important anchor for the State of Israel, and they are rightly considered our greatest and most important friends.”

- Maariv: “The Prime Minister will spend only six hours in the United States, and this time Israeli journalists will not accompany him on his plane.”

Har Tzvi comments: “It is not just a matter of shifts in the Democrats’ position. Polls indicate that Israel has begun to lose the broad support it previously enjoyed, even among young Republicans.”

In Congress, Har Tzvi notes that “in April, the Senate rejected two resolutions introduced by Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders to halt arms and military equipment sales to Israel, but what is alarming is that an unusual proportion—approximately 80 percent—of Democratic senators supported both proposals.”

In the elections, “candidates with anti-Israel views managed to win in the Democratic Party’s primary elections held ahead of the congressional midterm elections. A prominent example is the election of Abdulrahman Al-Sayed as the Democratic Party’s candidate for one of Michigan’s two Senate seats.”

Har Tzvi emphasizes that “the United States is a fundamental pillar of the State of Israel’s national security, as evidenced by the multifaceted assistance the administration has provided to Israel since October 7, 2023, and the joint military operations against Iran.”

Ganor stresses in Maariv that “the United States and Trump remain the most important anchor for the State of Israel, and they are rightly considered our greatest and most important friends, regardless of which government takes office here after the upcoming October 27.”

Yet the accelerating indicators—waning public support, growing distance from the current administration, congressional votes, and the rise of a young American generation unsympathetic to Israel—suggest that this anchor is no longer automatically guaranteed, as it once was.