With Trump’s Return, Netanyahu Faces Fewer Restraints On Gaza Than Ever

There was a time, not long ago, when Israel’s resumption of the war in the Gaza Strip three weeks ago — a renewed offensive that has already claimed more than a thousand casualties — would have unleashed fierce Western pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s prime minister.

The condemnations would have been swift, in public and in backroom conversations. The demands for restraint would have come from Europe and the White House, where during four years, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sometimes tried, and often failed, to contain Mr. Netanyahu’s impulses.

Now Mr. Biden is gone, and President Trump has made it clear that he has no intention of continuing the finger-wagging of his predecessor. Europe is distracted by Mr. Trump’s trade war, and Mr. Netanyahu has consolidated his coalition’s majority in Israel’s Parliament, giving him more political space to act.

On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu sat next to Mr. Trump in the Oval Office as the president lauded him as “a great leader.” The prime minister did not get relief from the 17 percent tariffs Mr. Trump said will be levied on Israel — one of the key objectives of his trip — nor did he get immediate U.S. backing for military action on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And at times he appeared nonplused as Mr. Trump spoke at length about trade, immigration and the U.S. economy.

But on the overriding question of Israel’s renewed military campaign in Gaza, Mr. Trump was largely quiet. He made no mention of the Israeli attack on ambulances and a fire truck that came to light last week, and that killed 15 emergency workers, or the April 3 strike that killed dozens of people, including children, in a school-turned-shelter.

“I definitely think Netanyahu is trying to take advantage of what he thinks is increased room to maneuver,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. She said the prime minister appeared emboldened by Mr. Trump’s silence in the face of the escalating Israeli attacks inside Gaza after a cease-fire that lasted just two months.

The result, say observers inside and outside of Israel, is a prime minister unleashed, with fewer guardrails to constrain his actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. It means that Mr. Netanyahu is free to resume his overhaul of his country’s judicial system without denunciations from Washington. And it means a changed dynamic in a region that has been battered by 18 months of armed conflict.

Israel has now barred aid from entering Gaza for over a month. Israeli forces patrol parts of southern Lebanon and Syria, where Israeli leaders say they will remain indefinitely. One enemy, the powerful Lebanese militia Hezbollah, was badly weakened in war with Israel; another, the Assad regime in Syria, was toppled by rebels.

Critics of Mr. Netanyahu note that he has resisted global opinion for years, hawking himself to the Israeli public as a leader who would defy the world to protect the country. He shrugged off American and global criticism over the intensity of Israel’s response after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, in a military campaign that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

“What little pressure there was could be dismissed and was dismissed,” said Daniel Levy, the president of the U.S./Middle East Project, a group based in London and New York.

Still, the difference between then and now is striking, they say.

On Gaza, Mr. Biden repeatedly expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself, prompting some in the United States to accuse him of not putting enough pressure on Israel to stop the deaths of civilians. But Mr. Biden did criticize the massive airstrikes during Israel’s military campaign, at one point calling it “over the top” and saying that the suffering of innocents has “got to stop.”

Last June, he accused Mr. Netanyahu of seeking to prolong the war for domestic political reasons. And while he never cut off the flow of weapons to Israel, Mr. Biden did delay the delivery of America’s largest bombs. Before the war, Mr. Biden also pressured the Israeli prime minister to temper his efforts to overhaul his country’s judicial system, a plan that critics called a blatant power grab and an existential threat to Israel’s liberal democracy.

“They cannot continue down this road — I’ve sort of made that clear,” Mr. Biden said, in a remarkably direct rebuke to one of America’s closest allies.

Now, that pressure has evaporated.

Mr. Trump has not challenged Mr. Netanyahu on the judicial plan. And the president’s own actions — attacking judges and law firms that have displeased him — may be seen by Mr. Netanyahu as a kind of permission slip for his own efforts, analysts say.

One former senior U.S. official said Mr. Netanyahu sees Mr. Trump as a “fellow traveler” when it comes to his efforts to reshape the judiciary to his liking.

Nadav Shtrauchler, a former adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said that the prime minister had experienced “a complete reversal” under the Trump administration that allowed him “much more room to operate.”

Mr. Netanyahu has even begun to echo Mr. Trump’s own rhetorical flourishes, repeatedly attacking his opponents as members of a “deep state” dedicated to persecuting him. “I haven’t heard any concerns from the Trump administration about ‘Israeli democracy’ or pressure on Netanyahu,” said Mr. Shtrauchler. “Just the opposite.”

At home, Mr. Netanyahu has stabilized his political position by removing almost every threat to his hard-right governing coalition, said Mr. Shtrauchler. And while his critics might consider the moves autocratic, he added, Mr. Netanyahu’s constituency remains resolutely behind him, giving him a free hand.

Defying his detractors, since the Oct. 7 attacks, the worst security failure in Israeli history, the prime minister has clawed himself back to a position of strength. Last month, he moved to fire his intelligence chief and his attorney general, actions seen as part of an effort to consolidate power and eliminate rivals.

In Europe, leaders who once spoke out forcefully about Mr. Netanyahu’s actions are distracted by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the scramble to head off a global financial crisis. And the continent is still shaken by Mr. Trump’s pivot away from decades-long trans-Atlantic alliances and his outreach toward Russia.

Mr. Netanyahu appears increasingly unconcerned with what Europe thinks.

In recent days, his government blocked two British members of Parliament from entering Israel on a fact-finding mission, prompting David Lammy, the foreign secretary, to issue an angry statement calling it “unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning.”

In February, Mr. Netanyahu joined with Russia and Mr. Trump to oppose a European effort at the United Nations to express support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. And last week, Mr. Netanyahu received red-carpet treatment in Hungary from Viktor Orban, the country’s authoritarian leader, who is close with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Netanyahu thanked Mr. Orban for withdrawing his country from the International Criminal Court, which in November issued arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and his former defense minister, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s latest actions in Gaza have been the most striking.

Opposition to his decision to restart the fighting has been fairly muted in Israel, though public polls suggest that most people want a deal to end the fighting and free the hostages held in Gaza, and that majorities of voters do not support the prime minister and his coalition. And Mr. Trump’s comments about Gaza’s future have changed the way Mr. Netanyahu talks about the region’s fate.

The president declared in February that he would support a mass deportation of Palestinians, to create a “Riviera” on the Gaza Strip, a proposal that would be a severe violation of international law. Since then, Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians have more openly talked about a future in which Israel controls the area indefinitely. On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump repeated the idea, Mr. Netanyahu praised it as a benefit to the people of Gaza.

“They’re locked in. And what is wrong with giving people a choice?” Mr. Netanyahu said, while also insisting falsely that Israel had not kept people inside Gaza from leaving for years. The prime minister said that he and the president had talked over lunch about countries which he claimed were willing to take in Palestinians who wanted to leave Gaza. Egypt and Jordan have repeatedly refused to do so.

“The president has a vision,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Countries are responding to that vision. We’re working on it.”

In Israel, the idea that Palestinians would be deported from Gaza was once the province of a far-right fringe. It is now endorsed by the U.S. president and repeated by Mr. Netanyahu, and Israel’s defense minister has established an office to oversee the policy.

“The encouragement, the boost it has given is to a camp in Israel which is very extreme, very zero-sum and was gaining power but is now really feeling it can operationalize things,“ Mr. Levy said.