Is Trump really playing ‘5D chess’ against Israel?

Ever since UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office last month, his government has surprised many in its steps regarding commitments towards Israel and Palestine. In clear contrast to his reluctance to say anything during the election campaign, Starmer came out almost immediately following his victory in support of holding Israel accountable to some degree.

On 7 July, only two days after taking office, a government statement revealed that Starmer “set out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire” in a telephone call with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, last week, his government dropped the UK’s legal challenge to the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant — as well as three Hamas officials, two of whom have been murdered by Israel — for their involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity pertaining to the military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Most recently, Starmer reportedly urged Israel’s President Isaac Herzog at the Paris Olympic Games about the need for “immediate steps” towards a ceasefire in Gaza. The prime minister’s office said that the aim is for “immediate steps towards a ceasefire, so that hostages can be released and more humanitarian aid can get in for those in desperate need.”

The new Labour government looks to have made a firm start on its foreign policy front.

Time will tell what Starmer’s intentions towards Gaza and Israel really are. He is, after all, no pro-Palestine campaigner, but he does appear to be making baby steps to hold Israel accountable for its actions as, indeed, every country in the world should be doing.

READ: Israel bought $11bn worth of US weapons during Gaza war

In the US, however, the body politic and electoral system is as captured by the pro-Israel lobby as it ever has been, with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spending tens of millions of dollars to fund supportive Congressional election campaigns and helping to unseat pro-Palestine candidates and officials.

At the top of the pro-Israel pile is former president Donald Trump, an avowed ally and friend of Israel. During his previous term in office, he moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in defiance of international law; recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, again in defiance of international law; withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal; and slashed US funding for the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. Trump even closed the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic mission in Washington.

Later in his presidency, he took an approach which his administration tried to sell as being more balanced, unveiling his “Deal of the Century” – a proposal outed as very clearly biased towards Israeli demands and ignoring Palestinian rights and sovereignty – while putting together the so-called Abraham Accords which resulted in some Arab states normalising ties with the occupation state.

READ: ‘PR Commando Unit’ unleashed by Israel to manipulate US discourse

Given the situation in Gaza and increased tensions across the region, though, will Trump take the same approach as he seeks to return to the White House? Or will he reshape some of his policy positions? Amongst his supporters, there are many who are claiming that he is not entirely aligned with Israel, and is playing “5D chess” with the Israelis.

They cannot fathom the cognitive dissonance and contradiction in Trump — this raging, pompous figure who won’t accept losing or being inferior to others — being all for “America first” while also being beholden to a foreign state like Israel. That realisation is particularly potent with the growing opposition to the occupation state by sections of the right wing in the US and the West generally, who are increasingly waking up to the fact that a disproportionate amount of time and resources are spent by their governments on protecting Israel at home and abroad, as well as relying on the pro-Israel lobby groups to secure political careers.

Such individuals claim that Trump knows that opposing Zionism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine is to basically commit political suicide, so he is biding his time until he is re-elected. Only then will he really put “America first” and begin to hold Israel to account.

The reality will leave them sorely disappointed, however, as Trump does indeed seem set on his support for Israel and there is very little – if any – indication that he is playing the Israelis. First of all, he has made a number of statements in defence of Israel over the past few months, reportedly telling donors in private that he would pursue a zero-tolerance policy in regard to the pro-Palestine protestors on US university campuses and even deporting those who are not US citizens.

“If you get me re-elected, we’re going to set that [pro-Palestine] movement back 25 or 30 years,” said Trump.

Furthermore, there is the fact that his campaign still largely and overwhelmingly relies on pro-Israel donors, with Trump especially needing the support of billionaire mega-donor Miriam Adelson. That not only gives him a keen edge in the presidential race, but also indicates that he retains and is guaranteed serious backing from the pro-Israel lobby.

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In its funding of candidates and campaigns at every level of the US political system, the lobby is the kingmaker seeking to have as many runners in the race as possible. Put simply, there is no greater and more reliable figure in the field than Trump. Israel and its proxies expect great things from a newly-elected Trump, and he has little room to disappoint them.

Those expectations will be even more damaging to Palestinian rights than in his earlier term in office. It came to light recently that, in return for her backing, Adelson made it a condition that Trump allows Israel to annex the whole West Bank and, in effect, complete the occupation of all of historic Palestine. To do so, of course, would not only fly in the face of international law, but also destroy what little remains of America’s credibility as an honest broker in the so-called peace process.

There have been some glimmers of hope in some of Trump’s comments which appear to be critical of Israel, it has to be said. In an April interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump criticised Israel for constantly releasing footage of its forces’ war crimes in Gaza and the targeting of the Strip’s civilian population and infrastructure.

“And the other thing is I hate, they put out tapes all the time. Every night, they’re releasing tapes of a building falling down”, he said. “They shouldn’t be releasing tapes like that… that’s why they’re losing the PR war”. That same month, Trump told TIME magazine that Israel should “get it over with… get back to peace and stop killing people.”

Such comments by the former president, though, while seeming to be critical of Israel are in reality critical of Israel’s apparent inability to restrain itself and boost its public perception as a humane, democratic state. In other words, Trump is frustrated not at Israel’s war crimes and killing of Palestinian civilians, but at Israel’s carelessness in not concealing such crimes.

To the disappointment of conservatives and Trump supporters who remain confused about his contradictory values and his blatant exception to “America first”’ when it comes to Israel, it is very unlikely that he is playing “5D chess” against the occupation state, or even 4D chess. Until he proves otherwise and changes course as Starmer seems to be doing, then we can safely say that Trump and his team are slavishly beholden to Israel.

As the former president said in an interview with radio host Ari Hoffman three years ago, “Israel had such power – and rightfully – over Congress, and now it doesn’t.” There is little doubt that Trump will try to fix that.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.