Binyamin Netanyahu has Donald Trump’s approval for the Israeli assault on Gaza City and will suffer no loss of US support after his attack on Hamas targets in Qatar, despite the potential threat it poses to US interests in the Gulf region. That has been clarified by secretary of state Marco Rubio’s trip to Israel and Qatar and is confirmed by Trump inviting Netanyahu for his fourth visit to the White House at the end of this month.
US support for Israeli policy matters hugely as the EU moves belatedly to restrict trade with Israel and Arab and Muslim states distance themselves from the US as an untrustworthy partner. Rubio remarked that such moves by European states and their planned recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations next week are “largely symbolic” because they lack real immediate purchase on Israel’s actions. This shows Netanyahu has come through the latest assertions of regional military power unchallenged by his key ally. His case that Hamas must be defeated before any ceasefire, despite the horrendous destruction of Palestinian lives and living space and the mounting evidence of Israeli genocidal intent there, is accepted by Trump.
Netanyahu acknowledges this has resulted in a growing isolation of the Israeli state and suggests ancient Sparta as a valid comparison, rather than the Athenian one most liberal Israelis prefer. Their realisation of political and cultural isolation has sparked a backlash to his Spartan analogy. That state eventually collapsed under the strains of military autarky, as opponents of its military action fear Israel’s own society may do in the longer term. Its goal of regional and international normalisation is unattainable without separate or shared statehood for the Palestinians.
Netanyahu and Trump reject that premise, as do the many Israelis who support them. Those in Israel and internationally appalled by these events need to redouble the pressure on that state’s leadership and on the US. If they want to change this disastrous course the pressure needs to be much more material and less symbolic.
