When Israel prepared in early 2024 to mount a military assault on the densely populated Gaza city of Rafah, Biden administration officials attempted to shape the operation, threatening to block the shipment of American weapons unless Israel developed a “credible and executable” plan to protect civilian lives.
It has been a different story under President Trump as Israel began a punishing ground offensive into a densely populated Gaza City on Tuesday.
As several major nations warned Israel about dire civilian casualties and the risk of prolonging the war in Gaza, Mr. Trump has been mostly a bystander, neither urging Israel to show restraint nor giving it his approval. Outside the White House on Tuesday, he said he had not discussed the matter with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and when asked if supported the offensive, the president said, “Well I have to see — I don’t know too much about it.”
Casting himself as a global peacemaker, Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for a stop to the nearly two-year Gaza war. But where he once publicly pressed Israel to end the conflict, he now appears content to look on as it escalates.
Because of the enormous leverage created by U.S. military aid to Israel, only an American president could slow Mr. Netanyahu, and Mr. Trump’s inaction amounts to a free pass for the Israeli leader.
“Trump clearly wants an end of the war and return of the hostages, but he appears to have neither a strategy nor the willingness to press Netanyahu,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush. “He threatens Hamas, but those threats are interpreted by Netanyahu as a green light to keep going. Thus Trump’s diplomacy is working against itself.”
“Notwithstanding this, Trump is better positioned than anyone else to bring the war to an end,” Mr. Kurtzer added. “But he needs to do more than make public statements.”
But a visit to the Middle East this week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered little clarity about just what Mr. Rubio and Mr. Trump are hoping Israel will do.
Just before his Saturday departure for Israel, Mr. Rubio ruled out asking Mr. Netanyahu to call off the coming attack on Gaza City. He suggested, instead, that the U.S. would be doing more listening than talking.
“We’re not talking about that or anything of that nature. I mean, that certainly won’t be what I’m going to communicate,” Mr. Rubio said. “We just want to know what comes next.”
On Monday, Mr. Rubio joined Mr. Netanyahu at a news conference where the Israeli leader vowed to “defeat” Hamas and gave no indication that he is still pursuing peace negotiations. Mr. Rubio expressed no dissent or concern.
Mr. Rubio did stress that Mr. Trump still wants a cease-fire deal that would free the hostages remaining in Gaza. But he blamed Hamas for the war’s continuation. And he gave no hint that he shares the view of numerous Arab and Western governments that the Gaza City operation could jeopardize any remaining hopes for peace and the lives of the hostages.
On Tuesday, Mr. Rubio said that “time is running out” for a peace deal, in what sounded like an ultimatum for Hamas. “At some point Israel — it’s their war; they’re going to get to decide how they want to proceed, because they’re the ones that were attacked on Oct. 7,” he added.
Mr. Trump has made remarks this year suggesting that he placed at least some blame for the war’s continuation on Mr. Netanyahu and expected him to finish the conflict, even if that meant his trying to force the Israeli leader to make concessions to Hamas. “You have to finish up your war,” Mr. Trump said in a March interview with an Israeli newspaper. “You have to get it done.”
But as international outrage over Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war reaches a new crescendo, Mr. Trump has not criticized Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy in Gaza recently. He has even begun to suggest that no deal with Hamas is — or ever was — possible. “I think they want to die,” he told reporters in July.
Last month, Mr. Trump shrugged at the idea that Israel might fully occupy Gaza, in further defiance of most Western governments. “I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump may also see mostly political downside in challenging Mr. Netanyahu, a near-heroic figure among many Republicans. The recent declaration by Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Republican of Georgia and a close Trump ally, that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza has proved an exception and not the start of a G.O.P. rebellion.
When it comes to Gaza, the only real separation Mr. Trump has allowed between himself and Mr. Netanyahu of late has come over reports of starving Palestinian children. That led Mr. Trump to insist in late July that Israel allow more aid into the territory, rebuffing Mr. Netanyahu’s claims that reports of hunger are exaggerated and that Hamas is to blame for food shortages.
But Mr. Trump has had little to say on the subject in recent weeks, even as aid groups say food and medicine remain disastrously scarce.
In assessing Mr. Rubio’s visit to Israel, it is instructive to compare it to the trips made there by Mr. Biden’s secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken.
During those frequent visits, Mr. Blinken routinely challenged Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials about humanitarian aid and the protection of civilians. (Mr. Netanyahu conspicuously declined to join Mr. Blinken for news conferences as he did with Mr. Rubio on Monday.)
If those topics were a priority for Mr. Rubio on Monday, he gave no indication of it. Nor did Mr. Rubio meet with Palestinian Authority officials in the West Bank city of Ramallah, as Mr. Blinken did several times.
Of course, Mr. Biden’s efforts to broker an end to the Gaza war did not succeed. But he did lay the groundwork for a cease-fire deal that Mr. Trump clinched during the presidential transition in late 2024, and which Biden officials hoped would be the first step to a lasting settlement.
“At the start of the Trump Administration there was real hope that he would pick up on the cease-fire that he and Biden negotiated together and use his leverage to end the war in Gaza,” said Ilan Goldenberg, who served as a Middle East policy expert in the Obama and Biden administrations.
“Sadly that has not happened. Instead, at every step of the way he’s given Netanyahu a blank check,” added Mr. Goldenberg, now senior vice president at the liberal Israel advocacy group J Street in Washington.
Mr. Trump’s laissez-faire approach to Israel may soon face a new test. The United Nations General Assembly hosts its annual gathering next week in New York City, and several close U.S. allies — including France, Australia, Canada and Britain — say they will recognize a Palestinian state.
Though such a move would be mainly symbolic, it is infuriating to Israel, where right-wing leaders are threatening to respond by annexing parts of the West Bank. Annexation might also be enough to rupture the relationships Israel has formed with some of its key Arab neighbors in recent years, and has maintained despite the strain of the war in Gaza.
During his first term, Mr. Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, a pact establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
Mr. Trump often celebrates the accords as one of his proudest achievements, even if recent events have proven the exaggeration of his former claim they had brought “peace” to the Middle East. He has hoped to expand the accords to include more Arab states, including the grand prize: Saudi Arabia.
The war in Gaza has postponed that prospect indefinitely, and it will almost certainly be impossible if Israel annexes much or all of the West Bank. Which means that Mr. Trump may soon be forced to decide whether it is time he applied some restraint on the Israeli leader.
Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state.
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