Trump Will Not Save Israel from Netanyahu

It’s time to give up on that quixotic dream

Since he came to office, many—including me—hoped Donald Trump might force Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza. Trump had the leverage: his overwhelming popularity with the Israeli public, especially Netanyahu’s base, gave him unique power to pressure the prime minister by breaking with him publicly. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump talked about wanting to end the war. He has long coveted a Nobel Prize, and positioning himself as the peacemaker who ended the Gaza war and unlocked an Israel-Saudi normalization deal seemed like one way to get there.

During the presidential transition, Trump officials went so far as to work with the Biden administration to orchestrate a 42-day ceasefire that would release Israeli hostages, send hundreds of aid trucks into Gaza every day, and seemingly bring the war close to an end. Trump has occasionally shown a willingness to buck Netanyahu—as when he met Syria’s new leader over Israeli objections, or cut a ceasefire with the Houthis without Israel at the table.

For these reasons, Israeli opposition politicians still appeal directly to Trump, and protesters in Tel Aviv don red MAGA-style hats reading “End This F@!king War.” But it’s time to give up the fantasy. Donald Trump is not going to save Israel from Netanyahu. If anything, he has consistently empowered and emboldened him. And while I often found myself frustrated inside the Biden Administration—wishing we had done more—for those who claim there is no difference between Trump and Biden, the record is clear: Trump has been far worse.

This began to become evident in February, when Netanyahu made the first of his three visits to the Trump White House (more than any other foreign leader). Trump stunned the world by unveiling a plan to “relocate” Gaza’s population and redevelop the territory. It was unworkable on its face—no country was willing to absorb millions of Palestinians and abet ethnic cleansing—and there were devastating ripple effects.

Before Trump’s announcement, talk of resettling Gaza was confined to the most extreme corners of Netanyahu’s coalition. Serious Israeli leaders dismissed it as a dangerous fantasy. Trump’s proposal mainstreamed the idea. Since then, Israeli ministers have been openly discussing “Gaza resettlement,” the Foreign Ministry has sounded out countries about absorbing Palestinians, and Israeli Defense Minister Katz has pushed the IDF to relocate Palestinians from Gaza. None of it will likely happen, but the Overton window has shifted—making it harder to reach any plausible endgame for the war.

When the ceasefire expired in March, Trump failed to push Netanyahu to seriously engage on a second-phase agreement. Worse, he and his regime greenlit a two-month cutoff of aid to Gaza. After international backlash, Trump endorsed Israel’s ill-conceived Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to replace the UN system—an effort that has resulted in chaos and mass food shortages, killed over a thousand Palestinians at distribution centers, and deepened the humanitarian catastrophe. Ambassadors Jack Lew and David Satterfield have outlined the Biden Administration approach, which involved doggedly pushing the Israelis to keep humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza. That approach could have more aggressively used negative leverage to change Israeli behavior and put more focus in discussions with the Israelis not only on humanitarian assistance, but also civilian harm from Israel’s military operations. Still, what the Trump Administration has wrought is so much worse. The result has been mass starvation in Gaza, a strategic disaster for Israel, and devastating damage to its international standing.

Most recently, Trump’s own rhetoric has fueled further escalation. When Netanyahu announced plans to expand operations in Gaza despite opposition from the IDF, hundreds of retired security officials, hostage families, and most Israelis, Trump posted on Truth Social: “We will see the release of the remaining hostages only when Hamas is destroyed!!! Play to win—or don’t play at all!”

Meanwhile, settler violence in the West Bank has spiked to record levels, with attacks on Palestinians on a daily basis and extremists openly seeking to drive them from their land. Under Biden, the U.S. sanctioned violent settlers pressed Israel to hold them accountable. Trump reversed those sanctions on day one, and his allies, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, now meet openly with ministers and even with Netanyahu in some of the most controversial settlements. When Bezalel Smotrich recently announced new settlement tenders in the E-1 corridor—a red line for Democratic and Republican U.S. administrations for nearly 30 years—Trump’s State Department didn’t even object.

On Iran, Trump briefly flirted this spring with pursuing a nuclear deal that might have drawn bipartisan support and provided long-term constraints on Iran’s program. Netanyahu convinced Trump to let him quickly shut that door. In June, Israel launched a preventive war on Iran, torpedoing diplomacy. While the strike bought Israel time and did real near-term damage to Iran’s nuclear program, the long-term costs are high: 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium remain unaccounted for, international inspectors have been entirely ejected for the first time in years, and any chance of a deal has collapsed. The likeliest outcome now is an endless cycle of Iranian efforts to rebuild its nuclear program, Israeli strikes to prevent it, Iranian missile strikes on Israel, and the real risk that Iran manages to secretly build a bomb that surprises Israeli and American intelligence. All of this is far more dangerous than a verifiable agreement.

Trump was never going to be the “Nixon goes to China” peacemaker. What we are seeing instead is a blank-check policy for Netanyahu and his most extreme allies. The results are clear: a strategic catastrophe for Israel, a humanitarian tragedy for Palestinians, and a further erosion of U.S. credibility.

Give up the dream. Donald Trump will never save Israel from Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ilan Goldenberg is Chief Policy Officer at J Street. He served as Vice President Kamala Harris's Special Advisor on the Middle East at the White House and Jewish Outreach Director on the 2024 Presidential campaign. To read more of his work please visit and subscribe to: