Trump is suspending aid to Ukraine but he’s rolling over for Israel
The president’s hardball negotiating tactics are nowhere to be seen as he sends billions in new weapons to Netanyahu
Donald Trump, in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, barely mentioned Gaza or the wider Middle East, making only a passing reference to bringing back US hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza
Trump didn’t even expound on his plan for the US to take over the devastated territory and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” while expelling 2 million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries
Trump is already going down the same failed path as his predecessor, Joe Biden, who sent Israel a virtually unlimited supply of weapons – and failed to use US political cover at the United Nations and billions of dollars in arms as leverage to stop Israel’s war on Gaza
On 1 March, the Trump administration announced it had approved $4billion in new weapons to Israel under emergency authorities, meaning the deal would bypass even a perfunctory review in Congress
A day later, Benjamin Netanyahu banned all food and other aid deliveries to Gaza, imposing a new siege that threatens to collapse a fragile ceasefire reached in January 2025
