Ep. 174: America is back as the ‘strong horse’ in the Middle East

There were serious concerns raised about the way Israel seemed to have been sidelined during President Donald Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East. But JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin says that those worries need to be balanced recognizing that Trump has earned the trust of the pro-Israel community. He also believes that the substance of his policy address during the trip in which he said that the U.S. would reject both nation-building and appeasement and instead take a realist approach to dealing with the region would be better for the Jewish state in the long run.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly. Bryen says that those worried about Trump and Israel shouldn’t panic. More than that, she noted that the way so many countries in the Middle East were showing eagerness to be friends of the United States since the start of Trump’s second administration was highly encouraging. 

“The good news is that the United States is perceived now as a strong horse in the region,” said Bryen. And, she added, that's bound to be good for Israel as well as America.

Bryen acknowledged that the fact that the war with Hamas can’t be ended quickly or easily will inevitably create some tensions with the United States since Trump dislikes “forever wars” and doesn’t want to be tied up in them. But she added that Washington has continued to send arms to the Jewish state to prosecute the war and is doing so without the conditions and criticisms that the Biden administration employed to try to hamstring Jerusalem’s efforts.

Bryen agreed that the optics of Trump accepting a plane from Qatar, a “frenemy” of the United States, as a gift were bad. But she explained that it was not something from which the president would personally benefit. The Qataris are untrustworthy and connected to Iran and Hamas and host the Muslim Brotherhood. But she also pointed out that their recent conduct indicated that they knew that Israel’s successful actions in Lebanon and Syria had significantly weakened Tehran. The United States needs to be engaged in the region because the alternative is China, America’s chief geostrategic rival and moderate Arab nations don’t wish to be dominated by Beijing.

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