Trump’s Israel criticism breaks with GOP, sows uncertainty

Former President Trump’s growing criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza signals a glaring break from GOP talking points backing Israel’s right to self-defense.

Trump allies played down the importance of his interview with Israeli reporters last week, saying his staunch support of Israel would continue in a potential second term.

But his comments in recent days underscore Trump’s ambiguous positions on some of the major national security issues he will face should he return to the White House.

John Bolton, who served for 17 months as Trump’s White House national security adviser, told The Hill the former president’s stance on Israel will largely depend on the environment he inherits and on what would best serve his own interests.

“At bottom, Trump doesn’t have a national security policy,” Bolton said, calling the former president’s approach “ad hoc.”

“He sees things primarily through the prism of, ‘Does this benefit Donald Trump?’” Bolton added.

Former national security adviser John Bolton seen on January 30, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Howard/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

Trump blasted Israel’s destruction of Gaza during an interview with Israeli reporters last week, and he repeated some of those criticisms Thursday in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Trump told Hewitt, “Israel is absolutely losing the PR war,” criticizing the images being played around the world showing massive destruction of Gaza.

“You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy. And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory,” Trump said, without directly answering whether he was “100 percent with Israel.”

In an interview with Israel Hayom last week, he said Israel made a “very big mistake” with the bombings in Gaza.

“Israel has to get better with the promotional and with the public relations because right now they’re in ruin,” Trump added. “They’re being hurt very badly, I think, in a public relations sense.”

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks on April 2, 2024, at a rally in Green Bay, Wis. (Mike Roemer, Associated Press)

Trump has lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the past. “F‑‑‑ him,” Trump said about Netanyahu, during a 2021 interview with Axios’s Barak Ravid after the Israeli leader recognized President Biden’s 2020 election victory.

He also attacked Netanyahu immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks — criticizing the Israeli leader for not being prepared for Hamas’s attack and harping on a 2020 grievance that Israel backed away from joining the U.S. in a strike that killed a top Iranian general.

“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,” Trump told a group of supporters days after Oct 7, while Israel was reeling with a death toll of more than 1,100 people.

But a former senior Trump administration official said the former president’s latest comments did not signal a break from his first-term policies, which were generally a wholesale endorsement of Netanyahu’s agenda.

“The former president still remains by far favorably inclined toward Israel and the nature of the strategic alliance. I don’t think that’s going anywhere,” a former senior Trump administration official said.

The Hill reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on his policies toward Israel and the Gaza war.

Sam Markstein, national political director for the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the reaction to Trump’s criticism of Israel was overblown.

“The controversy is not really a controversy, there is no ‘there there’ in the sense that, all the president was saying — in our opinion — was that Israel needs the time and the space to defeat Hamas and rescue the hostages,” he said. “That’s the bottom line of the comment in our view, and trying to turn it into something it’s not is unhelpful to the conversation.”

Trump has only weighed in periodically on Israel’s war on Hamas since it began almost six months ago — mostly when asked about it in interviews. He has given a muddled message, often focused the war’s impact on domestic politics.

Trump has said Israel must “finish the problem” in Gaza, signaling support for Israel’s use of force. And he has blasted Jews who support Democrats, claiming they “hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”

Israel’s supporters on both sides of the aisle generally pursue a policy of bipartisanship, to keep U.S. support for Israel strong across administrations and changes of power in Congress.

Markstein, when asked if Trump’s comments threaten that bipartisanship, spun the former president’s remarks as aimed at motivating Jewish Democrats to respond to criticisms of their party.

“I think the Trump comments, the bottom line was, ‘How could Jewish Democrats not be more outraged about what’s going on with their silence, with their votes?’ and that, I think was the top line. ‘How could they not be more outraged about what’s going on?’ He said it in his Trumpian way, but I think that’s the top line.”

He continued, “Bipartisanship for Israel is always an important piece of the puzzle. … We’ve been encouraging the Democrat side to police their own side for years.”

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President Biden has faced growing frustration from progressives over his ongoing support of Israel, despite his growing frustration with the civilian deaths and starvation in Gaza. That tension has been amplified this week by an Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers with the U.S.-based World Central Kitchen.

Some moderate Democrats have called on Biden to condition future aide to Israel on scaling back threats to civilians, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday she will seek to block a planned sale of dozens of F-15 fighter jets to Israel over its brutality in Gaza.

Trump has offered few specifics about how he might be handling the conflict if he were in office, other than to repeatedly claim Hamas’s attacks would not have happened if he was still president, citing his administration’s intense pressure campaign on Iran.

Markstein said a potential second Trump administration would focus on isolating Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which are engaged in proxy battles against Israel and U.S. forces in the region.

“Cutting off Iran, [reinstituting] maximum-pressure, stopping this policy of weakness and appeasement is a key piece of the whole puzzle,” Markstein said.

“If you cut off the head of the snake’s money supply, terrorism and activities like Oct. 7 will be much less likely. I think that’s a really important top line.”

Markstein added that “Abraham Accords 2.0 needs to be a priority,” referring to efforts by the Trump administration, and being continued by the Biden administration, to foster ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump has recently held a conversation with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  

Crown Prince Mohammed has called for Israel to stop its war in Gaza, with an eye toward securing a major deal to include controversial U.S. security commitments in exchange for opening ties with Israel.

The Biden administration is pursuing a multilayer deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel aimed at resolving Israel’s war against Hamas and establishing a Palestinian state, but that is fraught with pitfalls.

David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel under Trump, has crafted a proposal for Israel to claim full sovereignty over the West Bank, according to The New York Times, which would effectively end any hopes of a two-state solution.

Trump’s ability to advance any major changes to Middle East policy may largely depend on the balance of power in the Congress — as well as who is in charge of the portfolio within his administration.

“Personnel is policy. You have to look at who’s going to join the administration, who his lead advisers are,” the former senior Trump administration official said.

Many of the individuals most likely to focus on Israel and the Middle East in a second administration have a strong record of aligning with Israel on security matters.