Annexation as a gesture to Trump - analysis

Every time US President Donald Trump took a favorable step toward Israel since coming into office in January 2017, there were those who cautioned against getting too excited, saying he would extract a price from Israel.

One heard this when he announced in December 2017 that he would move the embassy to Jerusalem, when he withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, and when he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019.

“There are no free lunches,” ran this line of reasoning. “If Trump – the consummate businessman – gives you something, he expects something in return.”

Many believed that in exchange for these moves, he would expect far-reaching concessions from Israel.

Trump himself encouraged this thinking when in August 2018, shortly after the Jerusalem embassy move exactly two years ago, he said at a rally in West Virginia that Israel would now pay a “high price” in negotiations because it got something “very big.” The president said the Palestinians would “get something very good” in return “because it’s their turn next.”

But the dreaded “other shoe” never dropped, and Washington under Trump never asked of Israel anything on the Palestinian track that Israel did not think it could do.

So what about that price? Maybe when it comes to Israel there are free lunches with the president?

Doubtful. It’s just that people were looking in the wrong places. The payback for the dramatic steps Trump has taken in Israel’s favor is to be paid to Trump, not to the Palestinians.

During Israel’s last three election campaigns, Trump made it clear – more in the first election than the other two – whom he wanted to come out on top. In fact, his recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights was made just a couple weeks before the April 2019 balloting and viewed by some as a naked attempt to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reelected. So, too, was the rollout of the “Deal of the Century” in January, just a month before the third election, the timing of which also was seen by some as timed to benefit Netanyahu.

So what does Trump want from Netanyahu? Simple, a return of the favor: to help him in his reelection campaign – a reelection campaign suddenly looking increasingly difficult because of the havoc wreaked in the US by the coronavirus – just as he helped Netanyahu in his reelection campaigns.

And what can Netanyahu give Trump to boost his reelection? The president knows he has no real chance of making significant inroads with the Jewish vote, regardless of what he does for Israel, so Netanyahu can do little to help him there. He can help him, however, with the evangelicals, who in general are very pro-Israel, very pro-Trump, and very pro-Netanyahu.

Many of these evangelicals hold a theological worldview maintaining that the second coming of Jesus and the beginning of the end of times will only come when Jews control Jerusalem. Trump, in an interview with Mike Huckabee, said a month after the Jerusalem embassy move that he got more thank-you calls for the move from evangelicals than from Jews… “The Jewish people appreciate it, but the evangelicals appreciate it more than the Jews, which is incredible.”

In other words, the annexation of parts of Judaism’s biblical heartland is something that would play well with evangelicals in the next elections. Not coincidentally, it was last month in a prerecorded speech to a conference organized by an evangelical group to mark the centennial of the San Remo Conference that Netanyahu said he was confident that in a few months Trump’s pledge to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley would be honored, meaning that he does intend to go forward with annexation.

The argument can be made, however, that Trump does not need Netanyahu or annexation to get the evangelical vote. He already has that sewn up – evangelicals are not going to be voting en masse for Joe Biden.

And while that is true, what Trump does need is to galvanize this core, to excite them, fire them up. In close elections, those with a fired-up base have a distinct advantage.

Anti-Trump forces are plenty galvanized, and the administration’s failures in dealing with the coronavirus is likely going to add more logs to that fire. Trump needs something to throw at his base that will excite them, and get them to work passionately on his behalf.

Annexation of areas around Jerusalem and the settlements is an issue that might not win over masses of evangelicals, but it could energize a core whose passion and enthusiasm for Trump could make a difference in states where Trump and Biden are polling close, and where there is a large evangelical population: states like Texas, Georgia, Florida and Colorado.

Which helps explain Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s lightening six-hour visit to Israel on Wednesday.

Why did Pompeo travel all that way, in the midst of a pandemic, to meet for a few hours with Netanyahu and incoming Blue and White ministers Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi?

The formal reasons given were Iran, fighting COVID-19 and implementing Trump’s vision of peace. It’s a safe bet that the order was reversed.

The newly signed coalition agreement allows Netanyahu to move on annexation by July 1 at the earliest. Both Gantz, the next defense minister, and Ashkenazi, the next foreign minister, have not shown great enthusiasm for annexation and – as former chiefs of staff – are believed to share concerns about what this might do to critical security ties with Jordan.

Pompeo’s meeting with Ashkenazi is most telling, since he has for the most part avoided meeting Foreign Minister Israel Katz since Katz came into office in February 2019 – not meeting him in Jerusalem on Wednesday as well. Yet on a six-hour visit, Pompeo made it a point of meeting Katz’s successor, Ashkenazi.

Might this be because Pompeo’s mission here included ensuring Israel makes a preelection gesture to Trump?