Donald Trump gave Israel years of unapologetic friendship, biblical recognition, and a kind of political courage the Jewish state had rarely seen from any American president. Jerusalem was finally recognized. The Golan Heights, long treated like a bargaining chip by Washington diplomats, was affirmed as Israeli. And the Abraham Accords broke the suffocating myth that peace with the Arab world must first go through Ramallah.
But history has a brutal sense of irony: the very warmth that binds nations can also lull them into complacency. Too many in Israel began to believe that Trumpism is a new covenant — a permanent rewriting of the American-Israeli bond. It is not. It is a chapter, not a covenant.
Trump, for all his friendship, is a man of impulses, not institutions. He reshaped U.S. foreign policy with flair, not structure. His instincts were often good for Israel, but they were never guaranteed. And Israel, of all nations, should know better than to confuse divine miracles with political moments.
Ben-Gurion didn’t build Israel on miracles. He built it on paranoia — the good kind. He assumed every friend might one day turn fickle. When Eisenhower humiliated Israel in 1956 and forced its withdrawal from Sinai, Ben-Gurion didn’t sulk. He adapted. He vowed never again to be caught dependent on American arms or approval. From that humiliation came the foundations of Israel’s independent defense industry and nuclear deterrent. He understood what too many forget today: gratitude is not a strategy.
Israel cannot afford to be anyone’s client state — not Biden’s, not Trump’s, not anyone’s. It must remain a sovereign moral power that listens politely to Washington but plans relentlessly for the day Washington looks elsewhere. And that day will come.
Look at America: a nation split down the middle, its politics poisoned by tribalism and fatigue. Isolationism is creeping back into both parties. Progressives who despise Zionism grow louder by the month. Even some conservatives now mutter about “foreign aid cuts” while basking in the delusion that Israel can simply fend for itself without consequence.
Israel’s answer to all this must be the same answer it has given to every crisis since 1948: build, defend, and innovate — alone if necessary. The Jewish people waited 2,000 years to return home; they cannot afford to hinge that home on a fluctuating American election cycle.
The Abraham Accords were not just diplomatic trophies — they were prophecy fulfilled in realpolitik form. They proved that Israel can thrive regionally without waiting for permission from Foggy Bottom. The road ahead is through Riyadh, New Delhi, Nairobi, and even Tokyo — a network of alliances based on shared threats, shared technology, and shared survival.
Israel must also steel itself economically and militarily for a post-American world order. The United States will remain an ally — but an overstretched, distracted one. The smart move now is to localize more arms production, train for operational autonomy, and stop assuming the next shipment of precision munitions will arrive on time. The biblical Joseph didn’t wait for famine to strike — he stored grain in advance. Israel must do the same with its Iron Dome missiles, drones, and cyber defenses.
The Jewish story has always been one of preparation. When exile seemed endless, smart Jews with vision built yeshivas. When the nations said “you cannot,” Jews said “we must.” And when the world’s empires fell — Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Britain, the Soviet Union — the Jewish nation somehow still stood.
Trump was a friend. Maybe one of Israel’s greatest. But the lesson of Jewish history is that friendship is never forever — only faith and foresight are.
Israel must thank Trump, bless him, and then do what it has always done best: plan for the next test, the next betrayal, the next dawn. Because when it comes to Jewish survival, the best insurance policy is not a promise from any president. It’s Israel itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment