Everyone knows Donald Trump’s opinions are like yogurt: they don’t keep long and can turn sour fast. We also know that facts have a way of quickly overturning expectations. That said, and without wanting to sound naive, it’s fair to admit that in all the spectacle around America’s renewed involvement in the Middle East, two genuinely new things have appeared.
First, Trump’s plan for Gaza — the one he sold to those who will pay for it — does not call for Palestinians to be driven out of the territory. Go back a few months and you’ll see this was anything but guaranteed. The second concerns the West Bank: the firmness with which J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio rejected the expansionist ideas aired in the Knesset may have closed the door on “Greater Israel.” That already signals a pushback against new settlements — something quite new in the American stance, judging by decades of UN voting records.
Trump, whether out of vanity or calculation, has drawn up — or bought — a plan that seems, at first glance, to free him from simply following Israel’s lead. After the massacre in Gaza, Israel may be realising it went “a bridge too far.” Right now, it looks as if Netanyahu hopes that Hamas — or some “false flag” actor on Israel's behalf — will hand him a pretext to break the ceasefire.
On another front, by citing geostrategic reasons that Washington might find hard to ignore — not least to keep military aid flowing — Israel may be tempted to mount new operations in its usual zones of impunity: Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, perhaps even Iran. Those could serve as a distraction.
For the moment, this may be a somewhat uneasy time for Israel’s leadership, less free than usual to manage what has long been its quiet dream — the “living space” of the Jewish state. It’s an idea that, recalled with a bit of cold clarity, is worth remembering.
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