Implications for the U.S.-Israel relationship

As the country figures out what exactly a Trump administration means for any number of policies and populations, the focus seems to be domestic for now.  America’s relationships with strategic foreign partners bear some thought as well in how they might change or evolve in a Trump administration and beyond.  Perhaps no country in the Middle East is as important to U.S. strategic interests in that region as Israel and the events of the last few years may have caused rifts that will lead to significant differences in policy and tactics in the coming years.

Anyone who tells you that they can forecast what President Trump’s policy in the Middle East will look like is lying to you because his policy pronouncements’ inconsistencies leave arrows pointing in various directions.  But the fault lines of this relationship began to show a while ago. The relationship between former President Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had oscillated among various degrees of cool since Netanyahu took power a few months after Obama. The relationship got off to a rocky start when Obama did not visit Israel on his first foreign trip to the region and Netanyahu was not shy in criticizing the president leading up to the 2012 U.S. Presidential election nor during the negotiation of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

{mosads}In large part Netanyahu’s publicly stated preference for Mitt Romney in 2012 forced some erosion of the broad, bipartisan support Israel shared in Congress as some members felt that if they vocally supported the president they would be painted as waffling in their support for Israel. 

As our political news cycles go however, this all seems like ancient history, particularly as people continue to process the electoral victory of Donald Trump and his appointment of noted white-nationalist Steve Bannon to his White House staff.  And while we do not yet know what Trump has in store for U.S. policy in the Middle East, we can take a strategic, longer-term look at how past events will shape the future environment for the United States and Israel in the Middle East.

Domestic Developments

It is first important to point out that it is the policy of the U.S. to help the Government of Israel preserve its qualitative military edge amid rapid and uncertain regional political transformation and that this qualitative edge is rooted in a law passed in 2008.  This is not something that can be undone by an executive order and it does not seem like anyone in Congress has the desire or appetite to change the law in the near future.  But Congress is no longer the near-monolithic bloc that it once was when it comes to Israel.  As the Congress has become more polarized in successive elections going back beyond President Obama’s first term, a gap has opened leaving support for Israel a topic that some can afford to avoid, ignore or even oppose. 

Existing law and policy are certainly important factors but the direction that the Congress and Trump administration take the relationship have the ability to define the region’s prospects for success during this period of instability.  At present, the President’s strategic vision is being charted by an anti-semitic and racist political operative who will presumably plot the course for the country and his party for the next four years.  For its part, the Democratic Party is pointing fingers and searching for how it lost the Electoral College as it searches for its message and path ahead.  As it tries to move forward, the party may begin to lurch leftward in an attempt to better identify with and address the issues of disenfranchised voters that either stayed home or abandoned the party on Election Day. This will likely present an opportunity for Republican lawmakers to try and force more liberal and progressive members of the Democratic caucus to either vocally support Israel or side with what may be a more liberal constituency less prone to supporting Israel’s domestic policies.  These developments can make Israel a partisan argument rather than the broadly supported strategic partner with whom we can confidently share information on intelligence and threats.

International Developments

Beyond American domestic politics there are disruptive forces at play abroad as well.  Within Israel itself there are signs that the conservative wing of the government (which makes up a bulk of the support for PM Netanyahu) is emboldened by Trump’s win and will push to abandon the Two-State Solution that Netanyahu endorsed in 2009.  If Netanyahu himself reverses course it would be yet another rift that would make it more difficult for Democratic lawmakers (to say nothing of voters) to remain wholeheartedly supportive of Israel. 

Looking elsewhere, Trump’s announcements and early actions differ from President Obama’s course and the reactions from allies and adversaries will impact Israel’s future.  First, Trump’s warming overtures toward the Kremlin will likely embolden Russia in Syria worrying the Sunni monarchies in Israel’s neighborhood. This instability has the potential to weaken the unspoken cooperation that took root between Israel and the Sunni regimes in an effort to combat common terror threats throughout the Middle East.  This shared effort also largely aligns with American counter-terrorism efforts.  A disruption in the “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” arrangement could result in some consequential blind-spots for all parties’ policy makers and may have to limit the sharing of critical, actionable intelligence or prevent joint or bilaterally supported operations.

Beyond purely regional concerns, another campaign promise of Trump’s was to move the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Not only would this further embolden the Israeli Right wing and Settler Movement to pursue ever more antagonistic and counter-productive measures, but again it would leave many American supporters of Israel with an undesired choice.  This would also further distance Israel’s Sunni partners from their unspoken pacts. Jordan and Saudi Arabia are two countries who exercise a fair amount of power and serve as nominal balancing Sunni forces against Iran, Syria and Hizballah.  They would likely be forced to take public stances against Israel and the United States disrupting what is already a tenuous situation as those countries deal with the echoing effects of the Syrian civil war, ISIS’s struggle for operational oxygen and al-Qaeda’s efforts to remain relevant.

It may not be likely that any of these scenarios will play out in Trump’s first one-hundred days and some may even take years to come to fruition.  But roots have begun to grow from seeds that were planted years ago.  And as these roots extend they may push apart the earth at the surface and erode America’s bipartisan support for Israel.  As Trump tries to square his campaign promises with foreign and domestic political realities and laws that require a Qualitative Military Edge for Israel, policy makers should not lose sight of the fact that Israel is a strategic partner and not just a political or lobbying constituency to keep happy.

Wein was a policy advisor to the DHS Assistant Secretary of Policy and he focused on International Engagement primarily in the Middle East, Africa and Europe and on Law Enforcement Policy.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.