From the Lebanese dossier to the possible sale of F-35 fighters to Ankara: what are the main points of friction between the White House and the Israeli prime minister
The NATO summit in Ankara highlighted (again) the complex relationship between the White House and Israel.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump said he believed the Jewish state would withdraw from Lebanon. “I talked to Bibi about it. I think they will do it. I think they want it. They get along with Lebanon, they are signing agreements with Lebanon,” he said. Words, those of the American president, which were denied today by the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz. “As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have made clear, we will continue to remain in the safe zone in Lebanon and act from there, if necessary, until Hezbollah is disarmed throughout Lebanon and the threat to the inhabitants of the north is eliminated,” he said.
But that’s not all. During the Ankara summit, Trump significantly strengthened his support with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, irritating the Jewish state. The American president has announced that the United States will remove Syria from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism: a move which, on the one hand worries Israel, on the other makes the sultan happy (let’s not forget that the current regime in Damascus is historically supported by Türkiye).
However, it was Tuesday when Trump made it known that he wanted to revoke the sanctions that Washington had imposed on Turkey in 2020, after the latter had purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems. This is the first step for the possible sale of the F-35 fighters to the Ankara government. For now, Trump has said he is undecided about the possibility of taking such a step. However, the lifting of sanctions goes exactly in this direction. Which worries the Jewish state quite a bit.
It is no coincidence that in recent days, Benjamin Netanyahu asked the occupant of the White House to prevent the sale of the fighters to Ankara, arguing that “Turkey has aggressive ambitions”. “Yesterday, Bibi said harsh things about Turkey and about Erdogan. And I said, you know, I talked to Netanyahu. I said that Erdogan could have gone to war because he doesn’t like Israel very much, and he doesn’t like Bibi very much, and he didn’t go to war because of me,” Trump said. Moreover, again yesterday, a visit that the head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, was supposed to make to Israel, to speak with Netanyahu himself, was suddenly canceled. It is not yet clear the reason for the cancellation of the trip, but it is suspected that it may be linked to tensions over the F-35s.
In the face of these frictions, it will be necessary to understand how the relationship between the American president and the Israeli prime minister will be structured in light of the new military fibrillations between Washington and Tehran. In particular, theTimes of Israel reported that “the IDF has raised the level of operational readiness in all sectors, keeping both the defense and the offensive prepared.” That Netanyahu has always poorly digested the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran is nothing new. In addition to feeling marginalized and under internal pressure, the Israeli prime minister does not trust Tehran, fearing both its nuclear and ballistic programs. We will see in the next few days whether Trump and Netanyahu will return to playing on the sidelines or whether, instead, their relationship will continue to prove shaky.
