There is something slightly amusing about how the entire country is holding its breath ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump on Monday at the White House.
Amusing, because over the past week, major global powers – including France, Canada, and the United Kingdom – formally recognized a Palestinian state, and in response, Israeli officials declared that the days of the old British Mandate were long over and that Israel would not heed what some British prime minister or French president told it to do. Instead, Israelis were told by their government that Europe doesn’t matter and that what Paris or London says has no bearing on Israel’s policies.
Yet, when it comes to Washington, suddenly the rules are different. Trump, unlike Europe, is someone Israel cannot ignore. His blessing for whatever comes next is needed, and his timetable must be respected. Unlike Keir Starmer or Emmanuel Macron, Trump’s expectations cannot be dismissed.
That discrepancy exposes something deeper than diplomatic juggling. Yes, the alliance with the United States is incomparable to any relationship Israel might have in Europe, but there is also a bit of hypocrisy, even if it is rarely admitted out loud. When Europe demands a Palestinian state with a reformed Palestinian Authority, a leadership free of Hamas, and textbooks that don’t glorify terrorists – goals that used to align with long-standing Israeli interests – we shrug and turn away. When Trump signals impatience, on the other hand, we scramble.
This raises an important thought experiment: What if Kamala Harris had won last November? Would Netanyahu be defying Washington under a Democratic administration the way he defies Europe? Or would he already have folded? All this is to say that the deeper issue is not Europe or Trump, Harris, or Biden. The deeper issue is that Israel has stopped defining for itself what it actually wants.
Israel doesn't know what it wants
Instead of acting out of self-determination – the very essence of Zionism – Israel seems to be adrift, reacting to pressures imposed from abroad. Of course, coordination with the United States is existential. No serious Israeli policymaker disputes that the US-Israel alliance is the anchor of our security and that without America, Israel’s qualitative edge and its ability to fight would collapse.
However, coordination is not solely what this is about. The question is whether Israel is still capable of setting its own national goals or whether it has become a bystander. After nearly two years of war in Gaza, the evidence is not encouraging.
INSIDE THE government and among the top IDF command, there is consensus that the war cannot continue forever. The IDF is exhausted, the economy is strained, and society is stretched thin. Still, even with that awareness, no one has produced a mechanism for bringing the war to a close.
When asked about the “day after,” ministers and generals repeat the same refrain: We cannot discuss it, because if the details leak, it will fail. The problem is that while we might want to believe that there is a plan, that line has been repeated so many times that it does not have a lot of credibility these days.
After nearly two years and with the country isolated in a way not seen in modern history, it is hard to believe that the real danger is just leaks. And even if that is the case, who is the government afraid will leak? The international community? Or Netanyahu’s own coalition partners – Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir – who would bolt the government the moment they saw where the prime minister was really heading?
In practice, it doesn’t matter. The result is the same: silence. And in the absence of an Israeli plan, the world is writing one for us. That is what we saw at the United Nations this past week, when state after state stepped in to define a political horizon that Israel has refused to articulate for itself.
This is why the war has become incomprehensible to much of the world. Yes, everyone agrees that the 48 hostages must come home. Yes, most understand that military pressure is part of that effort. But beyond that, what is Israel’s objective?
When Israel refuses to articulate a political horizon, the world fills it with its own version, which seems like what people see on their TV screens – destruction, bombings, and ground incursions. In other words, it is what it looks like – a war of attrition.
If, on the other hand, Israel were to say clearly: We are fighting to remove Hamas and replace it with a new governing entity, and maybe even be able to point to a government-in-waiting, then airstrikes and ground incursions would be seen as part of a broader strategy. Instead, the vacuum is filled with nothing but explosions. That makes Israel look like a country bent only on demolishing and not on building something new.
To those who wonder where Israeli public diplomacy has gone, that will not help here. No amount of clever slogans or viral soundbites can mask the absence of strategy. Good messaging cannot cover for bad policy.
THIS IS where Monday’s meeting with Trump matters. The US president has made clear that he wants the war over with. He has bigger ambitions: a grand deal with Saudi Arabia, the expansion of the Abraham Accords, and a Nobel Prize, which he craves.
For now, Trump and Netanyahu are aligned in demanding a comprehensive deal that secures the release of all of the hostages at once, rather than a phased agreement with no guarantees. But Trump’s patience is not endless. Gaza is becoming a burden for him, too, much as Ukraine has. He wants to be the man who ends wars, but neither Ukraine nor Gaza has yielded to his diplomacy.
That makes Monday’s meeting critical. The discussions will range from Gaza to Iran – and the steps needed to prevent the ayatollahs from rebuilding their nuclear program – and even to the prospect of a security agreement with Syria. But above all, Trump wants a timeline for ending the war in Gaza.
Nearly two years after Hamas’s October 7 invasion, the truth has to be said: Israel remains trapped by the terrorist group’s success on that single day.
Rationally, Israel might already be able to declare victory: Hamas has been degraded, its military capabilities are gone, and its government has been shaken. A new governing entity could, in theory, be put into place to begin reconstruction and deradicalization.
Yet emotionally and politically, can Israel really end this war while dozens of its citizens remain somewhere underground in Gaza? Can families be told that the country is moving on while their loved ones remain in captivity? No, so the war drags on – not because Israel knows where it is going but because it doesn’t know how to stop.
That is the tragic legacy of October 7. Hamas not only killed and destroyed that day. It created a situation where Israel, despite its power, is somewhat paralyzed.
The government cannot define the endgame, and the people cannot imagine closure without the hostages. That is why the world steps in; frustrated by the vacuum, it wants to define Israel’s future.
The meeting with Trump on Monday is therefore not just another high-profile diplomatic photo-op. It is a mirror that will show Israelis an uncomfortable truth: Our fate is being debated in Washington because our leaders cannot decide what to do here in Jerusalem.
The writer is a co-founder of the MEAD policy forum, a senior fellow at the JPPI, and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His newest book, While Israel Slept, is a national bestseller in the United States.