TRUMP DUMPS BIBI

Netanyahu long viewed Trump as the US president of his dreams, who would eliminate any daylight remaining between Israel and the US, thereby strengthening Netanyahu's hold on power. But for all his unpredictability, Trump has remained steadfast about ending the era of US military entanglements in the Middle East

- Shlomo Ben-Ami

Israel's government decided last week to expand its military offensive against Hamas an effort that, it notes, may include "seizing" Gaza.

It is a brutal plan, devised in full awareness of its certain results, including the loss of the Israeli hostages who remain in Hamas's tunnels, the deepening of the humanitarian catastrophe faced by two million defenseless Palestinian civilians, and the erasure rather than resolution - of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But there is one thing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not anticipate: the fracturing of his relationship with US President Donald Trump.

With his choice to drag an exhausted Israeli people and military into the indefinite occupation of Gaza, Netanyahu is sacrificing vital Israeli strategic interests, including the Israeli-Saudi normalization that seemed highly likely just a few years ago, as part of a grand US strategy for the Middle East. That is just fine with Netanyahu, who ultimately cares about only one thing: ensuring his government's survival.

Netanyahu long viewed Trump as the US president of his dreams, who would eliminate any daylight remaining between Israel and the United States, thereby strengthening Netanyahu's hold on power. But for all his unpredictability, Trump has remained steadfast about ending the era of US military entanglements in the Middle East. And nobody - not even a close ally can make Trump do something he does not want to do.

Trump will do nothing to stop Israel from pursuing its forever war in Gaza, as long as it does not compromise American interests. (As a true friend of Israel, former President Joe Biden might have tried to save the country from itself.) But nor will Trump allow the US to be dragged into the effort.