Mairav Zonszein writes:

On May 12 an American-Israeli dual citizen and Israeli soldier, Edan Alexander, was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza after direct U.S.-Hamas negotiations that sidestepped Israel. The images that accompanied his release looked like an American operation that just happened to take place in Israel. It was a U.S. hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler — who conducted direct talks with Hamas in March — who accompanied Mr. Alexander’s mother on the flight from her home in America to Israel, and it was a U.S. envoy, Steve Witkoff, who handed her a phone to speak with her son at the moment of his release. Headlines highlighted President Trump’s phone call with Mr. Alexander. The message was clear: It was Mr. Trump, not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who got Israel’s soldier out of Gaza.

This is not the Trump administration that Mr. Netanyahu had so eagerly anticipated. On almost every significant strategic and geopolitical issue that matters to Israel — from seeking a new nuclear deal with Iran to a cease-fire with the Houthis, from embracing the new Syrian regime to negotiating directly with Hamas on hostage release — Mr. Trump is not only bypassing Israel but also moving in a very different direction from what Mr. Netanyahu would have chosen. The U.S. administration has sidelined Israel again and again. In so doing, Mr. Trump and his team have managed to expose Israel’s policy of destruction and the failings of Israel’s leader, whose lone success has been staying in power through pursuing constant war.

That doesn’t mean that there is an open crisis between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu or that Israel has lost the United States as its most powerful ally or even that Mr. Trump will force Israel to stop the war in Gaza. Indeed, in Gaza the United States has mostly left the Netanyahu coalition to its own devices. When the prime minister sat down with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in February, after a cease-fire in Gaza was imposed on Mr. Netanyahu, he and his far-right coalition received the gift of Mr. Trump’s Gaza Riviera idea — which lent legitimacy to the idea of mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. The Trump administration has since provided further support and weapons to Israel, including the 2,000-pound bombs that President Joe Biden had restricted, and reportedly floated the idea of transferring one million Palestinians to Libya.

But Mr. Trump talks about putting “an end to this very brutal war,” while Mr. Netanyahu is now openly promising to “take control of all parts of Gaza” and “complete victory.” [Continue reading…]