With the return of Trump, Netanyahu deals with fewer restrictions on Gaza and never

There was a time, not long ago, when the recovery of Israel of the war in the Gaza strip three weeks ago – a renewed offensive that has already claimed more than a thousand victims – would have triggered a strong western pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the first minister of the country.

The sentences would have been quick, in public and in the conversations on the rectum. The requests for moderation would come from Europe and the White House, where during four years, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sometimes proceeded and often failed, to contain the impulses of Mr. Netanyahu.

Now Mr. Biden has disappeared and President Trump has clarified that he has no intention of continuing to take the finger of his predecessor. Europe is distracted by the commercial war of Mr. Trump and Netanyahu has consolidated the majority of his coalition in the Israeli parliament, giving him more political space to act.

On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu sat next to Mr. Trump in the oval office while the president praised him as “a great leader”. The prime minister did not obtain relief from the rates of 17 %, Mr. Trump said he will be received on Israel – one of the key objectives of his journey – nor has he obtained immediate support for military shares on Iran’s nuclear structures. And sometimes it seemed not perplexed while Mr. Trump spoke long about trade, immigration and American economy.

But on the main question of the renewed Israeli military campaign in Gaza, Trump was largely silent. Did not mention the Israeli attack ambulances and a fire truck This came to light last week, and that killed 15 emergency operators, or the strike of April 3 that killed dozens of people, including children, into a school transformed into school.

“Surely I think Netanyahu is trying to take advantage of what he thinks is an increase in space to maneuver,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program in Chatham House. He said the prime minister appeared encouraged by the silence of Mr. Trump in front of the growing Israel attacks Inside Gaza after a ceased the fire that lasted only two months.

The result, let’s say the observers inside and outside Israel, is an unleashed Prime Minister, with less guardrail to limit his actions to Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. It means that Mr. Netanyahu is free to resume his review of his country’s judicial system without complaints from Washington. And it means a modified dynamic in a region that has been affected by 18 months of armed conflict.

Israel has now Excluding help from the entrance to Gaza for over a month. The Israeli forces patrol parts of southern Lebanon and Syria, where Israeli leaders say they will remain indefinitely. An enemy, the powerful Lebanese militia Hezbollah, was seriously weakened in war with Israel; Another, the Assad regime in Syria, has been overturned by the rebels.

The critics of Mr. Netanyahu noticed that he has resisted the global opinion for years, who has committed himself to the Israeli public as the leader who will challenge the world to protect the country. He shook off the American and global criticism on the intensity of Israel’s response after the attacks of 7 October 2023 by Hamas, in a military campaign that killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza.

“That little pressure could be fired and was fired,” said Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East project, a group based in London and New York.

However, the difference between then and now is surprising, they say.

On Gaza, Mr. Biden has repeatedly expressed the support of Israel’s right to defend himself, pushing some in the United States to accuse him of not exercising sufficient pressure on Israel to stop the death of civilians. But Mr. Biden criticized the massive air attacks during the Israel military campaign, at some point calling him “exaggerated” and saying it The suffering of the innocents He has “I have to stop”.

Last June, he accused Mr. Netanyahu to try to extend the war for internal political reasons. And while he never cut the flow of weapons in Israel, Mr. Biden did delay delivery bigger American bombs. Before the war, Mr. Biden also put pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister to mitigate his efforts to review the judicial system of his country, a plan that critics have called a clear taking of power and an existential threat to Israel’s liberal democracy.

“They cannot continue on this path – I clarified it,” said Biden, in an extraordinarily directed to one of the closest allies in America.

Now, that pressure has evaporated.

Trump did not challenge Mr. Netanyahu on a judicial level. And the actions of the president – attackers judges and law firms that served him – can be seen by Mr. Netanyahu as a sort of postponement of the permit for their efforts, say analysts ..

A former high official of the United States said that Mr. Netanyahu sees Mr. Trump as a “traveler companion” when he comes to his efforts to remodel the judiciary as he likes.

Nadav Shatrauchler, former councilor of Mr. Netanyahu, said that the prime minister had experienced “a complete reversal” under the Trump administration that allowed him to operate “much more space”.

Mr. Netanyahu has even started echoing the rhetorical flowers of Mr. Trump, repeatedly attacking his opponents as members of a “deep state” dedicated to persecuting him. “I did not hear any concern from the Trump administration on” Israeli democracy “or on the pressure on Netanyahu,” said Shatrauchler. “Just the opposite.”

At home, Mr. Netanyahu stabilized his political position by removing almost all threats to his government coalition to the test, said Shatrauchler. And while his critics could consider the autocratic moves, he added, the electoral college of Mr. Netanyahu remains resolutely behind him, giving him a free hand.

By challenging his detractors, from the attacks of 7 October, the worst failure of security in Israeli history, the Prime Minister has returned to a position of strength. Last month, he moved to shoot his head of intelligence and his attorney general, the actions seen as part of an effort to consolidate power and eliminate rivals.

In Europe, the leaders who once talked to the actions of Mr. Netanyahu are distracted by the rates of Mr. Trump and the scramble to get out of a global financial crisis. And the continent is still shaken by the pivot of Mr. Trump away from decades trans-Atlantic alliances and his awareness towards Russia.

Mr. Netanyahu seems more and more indifferent to what Europe thinks.

In the last few days, his government blocked Two British members of the Parliament to enter Israel on a search mission of the facts, pushing David Lammy, the secretary to foreign foreign ones, to issue an angry declaration that defines it “unacceptable, counterproductive and deeply worrying”.

In February, Netanyahu joined Russia and Trump to oppose a European effort at the United Nations to express support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And last week, Netanyahu received care on the red carpet in Hungary from Viktor Orban, authoritarian leader of the country, who is close to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

Netanyahu thanked Mr. Orban for withdrawing his country from the International Criminal Court, which in November issued arrest mandates for Mr. Netanyahu and his former defense minister, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But the latest actions of Mr. Netanyahu in Gaza were the most surprising.

The opposition to his decision to restart the fights was quite deactivated in Israel, although public polls suggest that most people want an agreement to end the fighting and free the hostages held in Gaza and that the majorities of the voters do not support the prime minister and his coalition. And the comments of Mr. Trump on the future of Gaza have changed the way Netanyahu talks about the fate of the region.

The president declared in February that he would support A mass deportation of PalestiniansTo create a “Riviera” on the Gaza Strip, a proposal that would be one severe violation of international law. Since then, Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians have talked more openly than a future in which Israel indefinitely controls the area. Tuesday, after Mr. Trump repeated the idea, Netanyahu praised him as a benefit for the people of Gaza.

“They are blocked. And what’s wrong with giving people a choice?” Netanyahu said, also insisting falsely that Israel had not prevented people from starting for years. The prime minister said that he and the president had spoken to lunch on the countries that supported were willing to take the Palestinians who wanted to leave Gaza. Egypt and Jordan have repeatedly refused to do it.

“The president has a vision,” said Netanyahu. “Countries are responding to that vision. We are working on it.”

In Israel, the idea that the Palestinians would have been expelled from Gaza were once the province of a far -right fringe. It is now approved by the President of the United States and repeated by Mr. Netanyahu and the defense minister of Israel has set up an office to supervise politics.

“The encouragement, the thrust he gave is to a field in Israel which is very extreme, a very zero summary and was gaining power, but now he really feels that it can make things operational,” said Levy.