Seems like President Trump does not intend to waste any opportunity to demonstrate that he is all-in with Israel. It didn’t seem possible that he could materially add to his first term’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, relocation of the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and his recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Yet as soon as he began his second term, he quickly reversed Biden’s restrictions on Israel’s ability to wage war against Hamas, came up with an out-of-the-box plan to relocate Palestinians out of Gaza as a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict, and just the other day admonished Hamas that if they do not release all of the remaining hostages by noon this coming Saturday “all hell is going to break out.” This came after Hamas announced that it was suspending further hostage releases “until further notice” because of Israel’s supposed violation of the current ceasefire agreement. Apparently, he had had enough of Hamas’ trafficking in human lives.
To be sure, he was likely also spurred on by the shockingly emaciated appearance of the most recently released hostages and likely shared our concern about what that told us about the condition of the remaining hostages still alive. Indeed, the various past delays in turning over hostages could well be explained by Hamas’ fear of showing the world evidence of their barbarism.
We would also suggest that the American president has now drawn the conclusion that Israel’s drubbing of Iran and its network of terrorist proxies and its decimation of Hamas and Hezbollah have confirmed that, with American support, Israel can be seriously relied upon to promote U.S. interests in the Middle East. And paradoxically this fits right in with the Trump goal of reducing the U.S. footprint in the Middle East even as it acted to support Israel to the hilt.
