{"id":549003,"date":"2026-07-19T12:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/549003\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:58:14","slug":"from-donald-trump-to-benjamin-netanyahu-the-strategic-mistakes-reshaping-israel-and-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/549003\/","title":{"rendered":"From Donald Trump to Benjamin Netanyahu: The strategic mistakes reshaping Israel and the US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s most powerful weapon is not the Shahed drone or Fateh ballistic missiles but its ability to strangle the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world\u2019s oil supply passes.<\/p>\n

Who in their right mind would have thought they\u2019d never use that weapon if their supreme leader were assassinated by its two most hated enemies as part of a massive war to destroy their regime?<\/p>\n

Who believed US President Donald Trump<\/a> when he declared \u201cin the first hour [the war] was over\u201d and that the Islamic Republic would be crushed and would accept his demand for \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d and a new leader of his choosing?<\/p>\n

What was Trump thinking when this week he declared the Strait of Hormuz \u201cOPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran.\u201d It was wide open to all before the US and Israel started this war, and now it is open only to ships willing to dodge Iranian attacks.<\/p>\n

And instead of free passage, Trump wants to charge \u201c20% on all cargo shipped\u201d to help pay for his fiasco. His bloviating immediately sent oil prices up and the stock indexes down.<\/p>\n

\"STRAITSTRAIT OF HORMUZ, OMAN\/IRAN — JUNE 16, 2026: 01 — Maps4media-processed Sentinel-2 satellite imagery shows a broad overview of the Strait of Hormuz, including the Musandam Peninsula, nearby islands, coastal shallows, and the narrow maritime corridor linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman. (credit: Satellite image (c) 2026 Maps4media)<\/p>\n

Did he think Iran would fold overnight like Venezuela? Did he think he could then sail on to capture Cuba and set up Marco Rubio with his own country?<\/p>\n

The strange doings in Washington were just a small component of the \u201cwhat were they thinking?\u201d march of folly in this surrealistic new world.<\/p>\n

What was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> thinking when he put Israel\u2019s security in the hands of a not-so-stable genius? Partner, schmartner. Trump has cursed, cajoled, and demoted Netanyahu, confident he \u201cwill do whatever I want him to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel was frozen out of negotiations with Tehran, even when they involved stopping it from pursuing Hezbollah in Lebanon, which wanted its country back from Iran’s terrorist proxies.<\/p>\n

Trump wants Netanyahu to know who\u2019s boss. \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for me, Israel would not exist,\u201d he has said.<\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance reminded Israel that Trump may be its one remaining friend among world leaders. Netanyahu squandered global sympathy following October 7 with the massive destruction of Gaza and the tens of thousands of civilians killed, injured, and left homeless in its wake.<\/p>\n

Did no one think that the world would no longer see Israel as the victim but as the vindictive destroyer?<\/p>\n

When it comes to deals, what made the Mossad think it could install former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new head of the conquered Iran, a Holocaust denier who had demanded the \u201cZionist regime\u201d must be \u201cwiped off the map?\u201d<\/p>\n

What were American Jewish leaders thinking as they saw public opinion turning against Israel and were too quick to blame it on antisemitism and bad PR rather than the policies and destruction of the extremist right-wing Netanyahu government in Gaza and the West Bank and its anti-democratic turn?<\/p>\n

And what were they thinking when they viewed campus anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests as the same threat to American Jews as the revival of armed neo-Nazism and fascistic militias and a major political party that thinks they\u2019re \u201cvery fine people?\u201d<\/p>\n

Honestly, what were they thinking?<\/p>\n

What were they thinking when, instead of listening to the serious concerns of friends, AIPAC and others declared war on long-time supporters of Israel who asked too many questions?<\/p>\n

New Jersey Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski<\/a> had a long history of support for Israel and even visited once on an AIPAC-sponsored trip. But in the wake of Gaza, he began to question the unconditional aid to the Jewish state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was enough. AIPAC wanted him out. It spent more than $2.3 million to defeat him, although its messaging rarely, if at all, mentioned Israel or the real reason for the attacks.<\/p>\n

It blew up in their smug faces when Malinowski was defeated by Analilia Mejia, a progressive who accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Mejia will likely win the solid blue district in November and vote with her anti-AIPAC mentors, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t a one-off for the once-vaunted lobby. It had tilted Right for years under the influence of wealthy Republican donors, neocon staffers, and Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

They apparently decided they could take the Democrats and Jews for granted \u2013 after all, they had nowhere else to go \u2013 and focus on the increasingly influential evangelicals and Republican Right.<\/p>\n

As one source close to Netanyahu explained, the evangelicals give us their prayers and votes; the Jews give us advice.<\/p>\n

What were AIPAC leaders thinking when they dropped the group\u2019s long-standing and successful policy of neither rating nor endorsing candidates and set up political action committees (PACs) to not only rate and endorse but to finance as well?<\/p>\n

Democratic and independent supporters felt rejected when the first tranche of endorsements was packed with 2020 election deniers and far-right extremists.<\/p>\n

Along the way, the lobby went from unknown outside Washington to a campaign liability across the country, with many candidates swearing off \u201cAIPAC money.\u201d They went from pursued to pariah. You have to wonder whether they are losing more friends for Israel than they are making.<\/p>\n

Who were the Jewish voters who voted for a mayoral candidate who openly questions Israel\u2019s right to exist as the world\u2019s only Jewish state? Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim mayor of the city with the world\u2019s largest Jewish population, is an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause and has accused Israel of waging \u201cgenocidal war\u201d in Gaza. He won the votes of a third of New York\u2019s Jewish voters.<\/p>\n

Recent polls show more Americans are sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel, and that American Jews approve of Mamdani by a margin of 44 to 32 over Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

His message of affordability was much more aligned with traditional Jewish positions than those of his opponents, and his views about Israel apparently just weren\u2019t as important.<\/p>\n

What were Maine Democrats thinking when they nominated for the Senate a candidate with a Nazi tattoo and a history of sexual abuse?<\/p>\n

You might ask the same about Republicans who picked an elderly genital-grabbing philanderer with court judgments against him for sexual assault and accusations of such conduct by at least 18 women. Since he won his election, one might conclude Republicans are more tolerant than Democrats, who quickly dumped their abuser.<\/p>\n

When looking at so many boneheaded decisions, you have to ask, what were they thinking? Like when Vance said the country was being run by \u201cchildless cat ladies.\u201d And when former US president Joe Biden<\/a> stayed in the 2024 race long after he and everyone else knew it was time to step down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Trump nominated attorney general Rep. Matt Gates, who was under ethics investigations for paying for sex with a minor, or Georgia Republicans picked Herschel Walker to run for the Senate despite his history of domestic violence, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who likened slavery to an apprenticeship for African Americans.<\/p>\n

You can ask, what were they thinking? Maybe it\u2019s just that they weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s most powerful weapon is not the Shahed drone or Fateh ballistic missiles but its ability to strangle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[83118,3760,49,13135,54,85,87,46,43,238,44185,114994,228558,2586],"class_list":["post-549003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-aipac","tag-america","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-republicans","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-us-iran-deal","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}