Everyone pees in the swimming pool, goes the well-known adage. But only some folks do it from the diving board.
US President Donald Trump did just that over the last week when he wrote not one but two Truth Social posts urging – or rather, ordering – an end to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, calling it a “witch hunt” and a “travesty.”
The swimming pool in this analogy is US-Israel relations. Interference in each other’s affairs is nothing new; it’s pervasive and mutual. Everybody does it.
What made Trump’s actions so audacious wasn’t the fact of interference but how he did it: openly, unapologetically, and with a barely veiled threat that American military aid might hang in the balance.
“It is terrible what they are doing in Israel to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump wrote on Saturday. “The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar (sic) a year, far more than on any other nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this.”
That came on the heels of an earlier post last Wednesday in which he declared: “Bibi Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELED, IMMEDIATELY, or a pardon given to a Great Hero, who has done so much for the state.”
These posts, predictably, annoyed and frustrated Netanyahu’s critics. Still, because they came just days after Trump ordered the bombing of Fordow, many responded with respectful restraint.
“With all due respect to Trump, he should not interfere in a legal process in an independent country,” said Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid.
Yoram Drori, a media adviser and former Labor Party spokesman who was, for years, a close aide to Shimon Peres, thanked Trump for removing the Iranian nuclear threat and then added: “Just for your information, in Israel, independent courts determine who is guilty and who is innocent. Even the most successful global sheriff cannot replace judges or their rulings.”
The common theme was clear: US presidents – no matter how friendly – should not interfere directly in Israel’s internal affairs.
Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who served during the years of president Barack Obama when the administration made little secret of its dislike for Netanyahu or interest in seeing him replaced, told Axios: “This is Trump’s emperor complex at work. He thinks if he drops bombs on Fordow and gives aid to Israel, he gets to dictate to Israeli judges how to rule. We’ve probably never seen a more blatant US intervention in Israel’s internal affairs.”
The Associated Press also took note, calling the posts “dramatic interventions in the affairs of an ally that previous US administrations had always insisted was a sovereign nation that made its own decisions.”
Really? One doesn’t have to think back far to find another muscular US intervention in Israeli politics.
In March 2024, during the Biden administration, then-Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer publicly called for new elections in Israel, saying Netanyahu “no longer fits the needs of Israel.”
“As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may,” he said. “But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice. There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7. In my opinion, that is best accomplished by holding an election.”
It’s hard to imagine Schumer making such a statement – calling for early elections and the replacement of the sitting prime minister – without at least a quiet green light from the White House.
Asked about the speech, then-president Joe Biden said: “He made a good speech, and I think he expressed serious concern shared not only by him but by many Americans.”
And even before the rift with Netanyahu over the Israel-Hamas War, Biden had already inserted himself into Israel’s domestic affairs – not over foreign policy, peace talks, or settlements, as has traditionally been the case, but on purely internal matters: judicial reform.
Shift in US intervention into Israel’s foreign policy
For years, US presidents have intervened in Israel’s foreign policy and war-and-peace decisions, but this marked a shift – an intervention in the heart of Israel’s domestic political debate.
In March 2023, with protests against the overhaul peaking, Biden told reporters: “Like many strong supporters of Israel,” [I am] “very concerned... They cannot continue down this road.”
Netanyahu, clearly irked, responded with a tweet: “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
Compare that tweet with his post following Trump’s first call to end his trial: “Thank you @realDonaldTrump. I was deeply moved by your heartfelt support for me and your incredible support for Israel and the Jewish people.”
The Biden administration’s campaign to slow or halt the judicial reforms marked an unprecedented level of American intervention in Israel’s domestic politics. As The New York Times reported at the time, the administration was dropping “all pretense” about noninterference.
In that context, Trump’s remarks are less an aberration and more an escalation. What sets them apart is the subtle yet unmistakable suggestion that US military aid could be used as leverage.
Under a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016, Israel receives $3.8 billion annually in military aid, a deal set to expire in 2028. While informal discussions about a follow-on agreement have begun, formal negotiations are expected soon.
Trump’s repeated references to how much money the US gives Israel – and his implication that this aid could be contingent – may well reinforce a growing sentiment in Israel: It’s time to reduce dependency on US military assistance and assert greater independence.
That sentiment gained traction during the Israel-Hamas War, when the Biden administration slow-walked arms shipments, and amid growing calls from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to cut aid altogether.
Trump’s comments may only accelerate this trend.
Indeed, in May, Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel needs to reduce its reliance on US security assistance.
“We receive close to $4 billion for arms,” he said. “I think we will have to wean ourselves off of American security aid, just as we weaned ourselves off of American economic aid.”
Netanyahu said ending US economic aid – a process he initiated in 1996 and that was completed in 2007 – had helped spur Israeli economic growth and transform the country into a hi-tech superpower. Similarly, he argued, phasing out military aid could stimulate the growth of Israel’s defense industry, especially given that current US aid must be spent in the US.
Trump, being Trump, was typically blunt and unfiltered in his intervention into Israel’s domestic affairs, but he didn’t invent the wheel. American meddling has come from both sides of the aisle.
Those complaining now about Trump’s interference would be taken more seriously had they voiced similar objections to Biden’s heavy-handed involvement.
Defending Israeli sovereignty should not depend on which US president is applying the pressure or whether their policies align with one’s own.