Israeli officials have put a brave face on President Donald Trump bypassing them on a Middle East trip this week, but his decision to do so is the latest to sow doubt in Israel about where the United States stands in Washington’s priorities.
On Sunday, a few days after announcing plans for an expanded military operation in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had been informed by the US of an agreement to release American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, after talks between Washington and Hamas that did not include Israel.
Trump, who will be visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, also caused consternation in Israel last week by abruptly announcing the US would stop bombing Houthis in Yemen, days after a Houthi missile hit near Israel’s main airport.
“The message to the region was clear: Israel is no longer a top US priority,” wrote Itamar Eichner, diplomatic correspondent for Israeli news outlets Ynet, echoing media commentators across the political spectrum.
One Israeli official said Trump’s announcement on the Houthis was “kind of an embarrassment” and that the president acts “for good and for bad”.
Israel has been talking to the US about the post-conflict future of Gaza, and officials say relations at the official level remain strong, but some officials acknowledge being blindsided by Trump’s decision-making.
One senior official in Netanyahu’s circle, who declined to be identified by name, said there was “chaos” in the Trump administration, with everything dependent on what the president decided at any given moment.
Sometimes that helped Israel, and sometimes it did not, the official said.
The decision on the Houthis, which was not discussed with Israel beforehand, compounded Israeli unease at US talks with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme, which could blunt any Israeli threat of military action against its arch-enemy.
Israel faced further alarm after Reuters reported that the US was no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalise ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks.
“We coordinate. It doesn’t mean you must fully agree 100 per cent on every issue,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday.
“The US is a sovereign state. Israel is a sovereign state. But I believe we have a very, very big common ground of positions with this administration, more than in the past.”
In March, Trump’s hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler, held what Hamas described as “very helpful” meetings with the Palestinian fighter group that bypassed Israel and focused on releasing Alexander.
Last week, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee denied that Trump was distancing himself from Israel. He said the relationship was often described as ironclad and “that word is still operative”.
