Trump’s Israel art of the deal: Repair Bibi-Putin relationship to neutralize Iran threat
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Last week, the Trump administration reportedly pressured Israel to vote against Ukraine on the Europe-backed U.N. General Assembly resolution, which condemned Russia for the invasion and affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity. As a result, Israel sided with Russia, North Korea and the United States, and against Ukraine.
On Friday, Trump booted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the White House, accusing him of “gambling with World War III.”
Is Trump trying to make Russia great again, cozying up to Putin? Hold your fire.
Here’s the rationale for Trump’s outside-the-box thinking.
TRUMP’S ART OF WAR: WIN WITHOUT FIGHTING
President Donald Trump, right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The “Deal-Maker-in-Chief” is almost certainly brokering a rapprochement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in order to break up the unholy Russia-Iran alliance, which poses a grave security risk to the U.S. and which former President Joe Biden had strengthened by his misguided foreign policy course.
Until Biden caused a rift between Moscow and Tel Aviv by compelling Israel to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, Putin and Netanyahu had a positive transactional relationship. It was based on the personal rapport and the shared belief that Islamic extremism is a common enemy, with which there cannot be a compromise. In the past, Israel did not criticize Russia for its wars in Muslim Chechnya, nor did it express any negative reaction to Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
Israel studiously maintained a neutral posture during the initial stages of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, having refrained from condemning Putin for the invasion, refused to join the U.S. and EU sanctions against Moscow, and opted to provide only humanitarian aid to Ukraine rather than military hardware.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their meeting at the Bocharov Ruchey State Residence on Sept. 12, 2019 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
Both realpolitik-minded and pragmatic, Putin and Netanyahu viewed their undeclared alliance as strategically valuable for the stability and security in the region.
Since becoming president in 2000, Putin has drastically improved the Russian-Israeli relationship, following decades of hostile relations between the USSR and Israel.
Putin became the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel in 2005 and pursued a largely pro-Israel policy as the Jewish state became home to the world’s largest population of Jews from the former Soviet Union.
PUTIN’S IRAN-ISRAEL DILEMMA AMID GROWING FEARS OF REGIONAL WAR: ‘COMPLEX CONSIDERATIONS’
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, meets with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Dmitry AZAROV / SPUTNIK / AFP)
With 1.2 million Russian and former Soviet émigrés living in Israel and 15%-17% of the Israeli population being Russian-speaking, Putin was never in favor of Iran, who regularly threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, having an operational nuclear capability.
In 2010, the Kremlin, complying with U.N. sanctions, banned by a presidential decree the sale to Iran of S-300 air defense missile system, which would have augmented the defenses of Iranian nuclear sites from airstrikes. Additionally, in 2019, amid rising tensions in the Persian Gulf, Putin declined Iran’s request to buy the advanced S-400 missile defense system. This was probably in response to concerns shared by Israel and Saudi Arabia and because he sought to maintain a positive working relationship with the two.
Netanyahu reciprocated, having even attended a Russian military parade in 2018, standing alongside Putin. For Bibi, Israel’s security trumps optics. The Israel Defense Forces were critically reliant on security coordination with the Russian military in Syria, where Russia controls the skies and has tacitly allowed Israeli fighter jets to conduct strikes on Iranian proxies.
From left to right, President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Bloomberg via Getty Images | AP Photo/Alex Brandon | Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
As a result of the rift, however, Putin strengthened his ties with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, hailing the “very close” relationship between Russia and Iran.
With the Biden administration trying to choke the Russian economy with draconian sanctions, Putin started to actively cooperate with Iran, including likely supplying Tehran with sensitive nuclear and space launch technologies. “We are actively working together in the international arena, and our assessments of events taking place in the world are often very close,” Putin said in October.
Last year, in April and September, around the time of Iran’s direct attacks on Israel, Reuters reported that Russian weapons experts visited Iranian missile production facilities, a sign of deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, which is undoubtedly a cause for alarm in Washington and Jerusalem.
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Trump is a pragmatist who places America’s security first and Israel’s a close second. He likely understands that Moscow and Tehran, who share a tumultuous history, aren’t natural allies as they are trying to portray. They’ve been pushed together by the unwise and incompetent Washington policies that, until Trump, have been driven by ideologies and wishful thinking rather than realism and U.S. security.
Trump likely believes, correctly, that strategically, it is in the U.S. interest to repair our relations with Russia, foster a Putin-Netanyahu rapprochement, and break up the Moscow-Tehran axis, in order to neutralize the deadly threat from Iran as it draws nearer in its capabilities to being a fully nuclear-armed state.
Like Putin and Netanyahu, the bombastic and strategically minded commander in chief doesn’t fear the “wrong” optics or being called, yet again, a Putin apologist. Trump wants to get done what must be done to ensure America’s security and the world’s stability.
An Israeli election billboard showing Likud chairman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a caption in Russian reading “Only Likud, only Netanyahu,” is displayed in Jerusalem on Sept. 14, 2019. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
Netanyahu is almost certainly on board with Trump’s grand plan as Israel is seeking to exert its own influence on U.S. policy. Jerusalem is advocating the U.S. to allow Russia to keep its military bases in Syria, which is now ruled by a terrorist regime, following the Turkey-backed coup.
To reduce the threat to its borders, Israel views Russia as an ally in Syria and a counterweight to Turkey, with whom Jerusalem has had tense relations, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan aims to shift the balance of power in the Middle East in Turkey’s favor.
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The Trump effect is already felt. Russia has invited Israel to attend the May 9th Victory parade in Moscow, commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Moscow, which is cautiously optimistic about Trump’s strategic realignment, offering Putin a seat at the table with the big boys, stated that “unfriendly states,” including Ukraine, Germany, France and others are not invited. On Saturday, Netanyahu’s military secretary, Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, was en route to Moscow to discuss “strengthening of cooperation in the interests of security.”
Iran was on the agenda during the U.S.-Russia high-level meeting in Riyadh, kicking off the peace talks on Ukraine, according to Putin’s presidential aide Yuriy Ushakov. Putin reportedly may also serve as a broker between Washington and Tehran on a new nuclear deal.
Trump has inherited from the Biden administration global chaos and a world on fire, which he is trying to put out. Look more deeply into his game plan before launching criticisms at him.
