Surrounded by America
Yossi Alpher — November 17, 2025
Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.
Q. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets this week with President Trump. Is this a high point in US Middle East policy? Or is it overshadowed by the impact of parallel events little related to Riyadh?
A. To the extent that agreements are reached regarding Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords and purchasing F-35 aircraft, this will certainly be a high point. For Prince Mohammed, too, being received in the White House constitutes a kind of absolution for his 2018 brutal assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
But I would argue that the expansion of the US military presence in and around Israel and its constraining effect on Israeli freedom of strategic maneuver, coupled with its aggrandizing effect on US policy options, are of potentially far greater significance for Israel, the US, and the Middle East.
Lest we forget, President Trump campaigned on a pledge to distance the US from ‘foreign entanglements.’ So far he appears to be doing the opposite. And his appetite is growing: from Kiryat Gat to Qatar; from Damascus to Gaza.
Q. Not just in the Middle East. Trump has recently threatened to invade Venezuela and Nigeria...
A. Let’s leave aside other, non-Middle East arenas. The domestic reverberations for ‘America First’ are also a separate topic in terms of US presidential politics.
Back in the Middle East, let’s start with Israel itself. We mentioned Kiryat Gat in southern Israel (not far from the Gaza Strip), where the US military has set up its headquarters for Gaza. Note, not in Gaza itself (meaning Palestine), or in Egypt, but in Israel. There are also reports of a US military base being planned for Israel’s Gaza periphery region.
US military personnel are also reportedly in northern Israel, facing the Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Syria arenas and coordinating with a US military headquarters unit in Beirut. The US is talking about building a base near Damascus in Syria in connection with Israel’s demands regarding demilitarization of southwest Syria as well as an apparent desire in Washington to ensure the stability of the new Damascus regime.
These US military basing plans position the United States squarely in the middle of the Arab-Israel conflict: the Palestinian issue as centered in Gaza, Israel-Syria Golan tensions, and Israel’s unresolved conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Q. Since when does Israel need all this help?
A. Two major military events appear to have triggered President Trump’s insistence on dictating Gaza ceasefire terms and deploying the US military in and around Israel. Both reflect the perception that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be trusted to make strategic decisions that affect US interests. This is particularly relevant in view of Israel’s status as the region’s preeminent military power: Is it now a ‘loose cannon’ in American eyes?
One trigger event was the abortive Israel Air Force attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, on September 9. Whatever advance notice the US did or did not have of this attack, it was seen in Washington (and elsewhere, including in Israel) to reflect dangerously faulty strategic thinking on Netanyahu’s part. This, in turn, triggered recognition that Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza was becoming both unwinnable and liable to escalate out of control.
Hence Trump’s demands on Netanyahu during his recent White House visit regarding the twenty-point ceasefire agreement and a dramatic apology to Qatar, accompanied by new US security guarantees for Qatar. There is every indication that Washington does not trust Netanyahu to implement the Gaza ceasefire on his own. Or, for that matter, to negotiate a new set of demilitarization arrangements with the new Syrian regime, whose leader Ahmad a-Sharaa just visited Washington.
Note that prospects for a US-assisted Syria-Israel modus vivendi are linked to the Trump administration’s demand to integrate Turkiye, patron of the new Syrian regime, into peacekeeping and stabilization arrangements in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu objects because of the Islamist orientation and bitter anti-Israel stance of Turkish President Erdogan. Trump needs Erdogan’s cooperation not only in Syria and vis-à-vis Iran but regarding Russia as well.
Netanyahu, in his post-Gaza and post-Qatar weakness, not to mention his domestic Israeli troubles, will probably not be able to prevent Trump from deploying Turks in the Gaza Strip over Israeli (and possibly Egyptian) objections. Nor, for that matter, does Netanyahu have a say regarding the US role in pushing through a United Nations Security Council resolution favoring—in accordance with point 19 of Trump’s twenty points that Netanyahu was obliged to sign—a Palestinian state.
Q. And beyond Israel in the Middle East?
A. The US military mission in northeast Syria, some 2000-strong, is reportedly mediating the integration of the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces into a-Sharaa’s reconstituted military. Some 1,300 US troops stationed in Iraq to fight remnants of the Islamic State and scheduled to be withdrawn in early 2026 are now reported to be remaining.
Q. Back to US-Israel relations: What are the strategic ramifications of all this unanticipated US military activism in and around Israel?
A. One key background factor is Netanyahu’s mismanagement of the Gaza War. Another is the growing anticipation in Israel of renewed fighting with Iran and its Lebanese Shiite proxy, Hezbollah. These developments have increased Israel’s reliance on the Trump administration and, accordingly, Washington’s capacity to dictate strategic military moves to Israel—for the time being, in Gaza and on the Golan.
This is without precedent in recent decades. As long ago as the mid-1950s, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declared that, “Our future does not depend on what the Goyim [nations of the world] say, but rather on what the Jews do.” It is increasingly clear that Netanyahu has maneuvered Israel into circumstances that belie this admonition.
To be sure, with a dead-end coalition like Netanyahu’s ruling Israel disastrously, it may be beneficial for Israel’s overall well-being to have the Americans around and so deeply involved, despite the precedent-shattering nature of this embrace. Yet here several potential dilemmas suggest themselves:
First, what if the Israeli security establishment perceives a genuine and urgent strategic threat, from Iran or Hezbollah for example? Is Israel free to act or does it now require US permission? And what if Trump refuses to give the green light because he has different priorities linked to his forces’ far-flung deployment in the region?
Conceivably, we have already reached a point where Israel needs an American go-ahead for a variety of military actions it used to take for granted.
Second, what happens when US forces deployed in the region, say in Syria or Gaza, get into trouble militarily—an almost certain eventuality in view of the growing extent of US deployment? One way or another, nearby Israeli forces are liable to be involved. How convenient will it be to blame Israel?
Third, if Trump now really pushes Palestinian state formation, will Netanyahu or a right-wing successor equally dedicated to controlling all the territory west of the Jordan River, simply comply?
Q. Bottom line?
A. Is this what Netanyahu will be remembered for: eroding away at Israeli strategic independence not only through ineptitude, but also in order to placate an American president who is at best a superficial strategic thinker and actor?
“When you’re president, you really sort of have to watch over the world,” said Trump recently.
Not to mention one obvious, and pathetic, quid pro quo on Trump’s part that constitutes blatant intervention in domestic Israeli affairs: petitioning Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon the prime minister, who has been embattled in distracting criminal proceedings for more years than most of us can remember.
Finally, I cannot recall a US military deployment in the Middle East that is this extensive since Bush 43’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. In some ways, the current deployment is more reminiscent of the Soviet Middle East presence—in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen—in the 1960s and ‘70s. Is Trump, who once denounced such ‘entanglements,’ suddenly fantasizing about a similar ‘empire?’ Will it serve or demolish his Nobel Peace Prize ambitions?
