by James M Dorsey
Russia is not the only country laughing all the way to the bank after US President Donald J. Trump’s war of words with his visiting Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
So is Israel. Mr. Trump’s willingness to accommodate Russian President Vladimir Putin serves Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s purpose as he seeks to redraw the Middle East map in his mould.
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Mr. Netanyahu signalled as much, when days before Mr. Trump’s shouting match with Mr. Zelensky, Israel voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution that affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and condemned Russia’s invasion of the country. It was the first time Israel voted against Ukraine since the Russian invasion three years ago.
Initially, Israeli officials portrayed the vote as Israel succumbing to US pressure that, according to one official, “came at all levels, at the UN, in Washington, and in Israel.”
In the days since the ballot, Israel signalled that its vote, coupled with its use of military force and landgrabs to demilitarise most of its neighbours’ borders with the Jewish state, is about being a player in a new world order dominated by spheres of influence in which certain countries are top dog.
It’s a world Mr. Netanyahu knows how to maneuver.
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Mr. Netanyahu sees opportunity in his Ukraine vote, Mr. Trump’s overall support for the prime minister’s policies, and the president’s willingness to reshape debate by initially staking out maximalist positions like his Gaza resettlement plan that would see the Strip’s population evicted from the territory.
In Mr. Netanyahu’s mind, Israel is Mr. Trump’s regional top dog in a Middle East in which the Jewish state’s interests align with the interests of Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states, potentially browbeaten by the United States to fall into line.
In reality, the opposite may be true, as Israel’s war conduct and refusal to embrace the notion of an independent Palestinian state drive Arabs and Israelis further apart.
Even so, Mr. Netanyahu thinks that by getting in front of the cart, he not only curries favour in Washington but also reopens doors to Russia closed during the Gaza war and potentially enlists Russia in cementing Israel’s top dog position in the Middle East.
Exploiting the fact that Syria doesn’t rank high on Mr. Trump’s agenda, Israel has lobbied his administration to endorse a continued Russian military presence in a decentralised Syria.
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Israel believes Russian military bases and Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria will weaken Turkish influence in Damascus on the back of Turkey’s support for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the jihadist group that spearheaded the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad.
Hayat Tahrir leader-turned-President Ahmed al-Sharaa reportedly expressed a willingness to allow Russia to maintain its bases in Syria provided it returned Mr Al-Assad and took responsibility for its support for the former president during the civil war through “concrete measures such as compensation, reconstruction and recovery.”
Mr. Al-Assad fled on a flight to Moscow that departed from a Russian airbase on the Syrian Mediterranean coast as the rebels entered Damascus in December.
With Turkey at times threatening to enter the Gaza war in support of the Palestinians, Israel is likely most concerned about having a hostile, battle-hardened NATO member on its border backed by a depleted Syrian military populated by Islamist rebels.
As a result, Mr. Netanyahu this week demanded that Syria refrain from deploying forces south of the capital Damascus.
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“We demand the complete demilitarization of southern Syria in the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa, and Suwayda from the forces of the new regime,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
The Israeli military drove the point home by attacking military targets in southern Syria shortly after Mr. Netanyahu spoke.
Earlier, Israel insisted it would remain for the foreseeable future on Syrian territory beyond the Golan Heights, occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Israeli troops moved into a United Nations buffer zone in Syria immediately after Mr. Al-Assad’s overthrow.
Mr. Netanyahu is also lobbying Mr. Trump to maintain the 2,000 US troops in northern Syria tasked with fighting the Islamic State in cooperation with the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that wants autonomy for the Kurds in a federated Syria.
Syrian Kurdish media reported in January that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar gave “positive guarantees to the rights of the Kurds.” Earlier, Mr. Saar described the Kurds as Israel’s “natural allies.”
Designated a terrorist group by Turkey because of its links to the outlawed Turkish ‘Kurdish Workers Party (PKK),’ the SDF provided the ground troops in the US-led fight against the Islamic State.
This week, the SDF and its allies rejected a call by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for the group to end its four-decade-long low-intensity insurgency in southeastern Turkey and dissolve itself.
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SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said Mr. Ocalan’s call applied to the PKK, not the SDF, while Democratic Union Party (PYD) chairman Salih Muslim insisted that the Kurds would only disarm once Turkey and its proxies stop attacking them.
The SDF earlier rejected Mr. Al-Sharaa’s insistence that the group disarm and that its fighters individually join the Syrian military, not as a bloc as demanded by the Kurdish group. Mr. Al-Sharaa further aligned himself with Turkey in vetoing Kurdish self-rule.
Chances are near zero that Mr. Netanyahu risks one day suffering Mr. Zelensky’s fate in the White House.
Even so, the coming weeks may indicate whether there is any daylight between the Trump administration and Mr. Netanyahu.
An important indicator will be the president’s response to a plan likely to be adopted by an Arab summit in Cairo early in the week.
The plan is the Arab world’s response to Mr. Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere and turn the Strip into a high-end beachfront real estate development.
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The plan reportedly calls for an end to the war, the installation of an interim post-war administration made up of Gazan businessmen and notables, a retrained Palestinian security force, and safe zones in Gaza for the population during reconstruction.
In an indication that he may be more restrained in his dealings with Arab countries, Mr. Trump last month refrained from giving King Abdullah of Jordan, like Ukraine, a country dependent on US largesse, the Zelensky treatment for rejecting his Gaza plan.
Even so, Israel is likely to take heart from Iranians worrying that Ukraine may not be the only country at risk of being a sacrificial lamb on the altar of big power politics.
In addition, Israelis see US-Iranian nuclear talks, if it comes to that, potentially breaking down in much the same way Messrs. Trump and Zelensky’s car careened off the road.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly indicated that he prefers a negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran rather than military action to take out the country’s nuclear facilities, as advocated by Mr. Netanyahu.
Messrs. Trump and Zelensky’s public spat reduces the immediate risk of Iran joining Ukraine on the altar, but it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of Iran ultimately being part of a US-Russian grand bargain despite Russia Iran signing a “comprehensive strategic partnership” in January.
“Russia forgets it friends in difficult circumstances,” said political analyst Rahman Qahremanpour.
In that case, Israel could join Russia more than once laughing its way to the bank.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.