President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will formally inaugurate a partnership Wednesday, a symbolic united front at the White House that, if history is a guide, cannot last intact.
On the U.S. side, the expectations could not be higher for a clean break from what Trump sees as the failures of President Barack Obama’s years and a bold stroke for Mideast peace — what the businessman calls “the ultimate deal.”
Success hinges on Netanyahu’s cooperation in the near-certain event that Trump asks him to make political or other concessions, the ground on which Netanyahu’s relationship with Obama was irreversibly damaged. It may also depend on Trump’s own reaction if, as participants in past peace efforts said is likely, Netanyahu attempts to get the better of the new U.S. dealmaker-in-chief.
On the Israeli side, Netanyahu is counting on the Trump administration’s aggressive and skeptical U.S. approach to Iran and the nuclear deal, as well as nearly unqualified support for policies toward the Palestinians that have brought international condemnation. And to his political right at home, an increasingly powerful Israeli political constituency wants carte blanche from the new U.S. administration to turn away from the once shared U.S.-Israeli goal of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
