Is there really a growing rift between the US and Israel?
There was shock in Israel on May 4 when a missile, launched by the Houthis from Yemen, managed to evade the country's air defences and hit Ben Gurion airport. The attack injured several civilians and caused considerable economic damage, with several foreign airlines suspending flights to Israel indefinitely. Two days later, US President Trump dropped a bombshell of his own, announcing that the US would stop attacking the Houthis, after they had agreed not to 'blow up ships anymore.' The deal was brokered by Oman and the country's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, confirmed the agreement, saying it ensured 'freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping.'
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US air strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen began under the Biden administration with the aim of keeping the Red Sea open for global shipping. When Trump became president in January, he intensified air strikes on the Houthis, after they threatened to resume attacks on Israeli ships. The Houthis, however, were quick to say the agreement with the US did not cover Israeli shipping. The head of their ruling Supreme Political Council in Yemen, Mahdi al-Mashat, said the group would continue its maritime as well as missile attacks 'in support of Gaza.'
When this was pointed out to Trump, he gave a verbal shrug of the shoulders, saying 'I don't know about that, but I know one thing: They want nothing to do with us.' Israeli officials told the press that they had received no prior notice of the US-Houthi agreement.
To many in Israel, this was the latest in a series of surprise and unwelcome decisions by the US taken without consultation with its main regional ally. President Trump's decision not to visit Israel during his upcoming trip to the Gulf only boosted to speculation of a rift between the US and Israel.
In March, Israeli leaders were taken aback when Trump decided to send his special envoy Adam Boehler to talk directly to Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya in a bid to win the release of American hostages held in Gaza. The talks with Hamas in the end got nowhere. But the Israeli government, which has put the destruction of Hamas as the main of its war in Gaza, were surprised to find out about these direct US contacts with its enemy.
But a bigger shock for the Israelis was President Trump's volte face last month on talks with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was blindsided by the announcement. After flying to Washington to discuss trade tariffs, he had to sit silently in the Oval Office and hear the US president announce to the world's press that he was restarting indirect talks with Iran on its nuclear programme.
Netanyahu had no warning that Trump had decided to go down the diplomatic path in dealing with Iran. The main reason he had welcomed Trump's re-election in 2024 was the policy of 'maximum pressure' on Iran Trump had pursued in his first term as president, and because Trump had withdrawn from the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration. Now, the Israeli leadership feared, Trump was letting himself be tricked by a wily Iran into open-ended talks, while the regime would continue its uranium enrichment to the point where it could rapidly acquire a nuclear device.
The Netanyahu government, by contrast, has been pressuring Washington into participating in, or at the very least giving the go ahead for the Israeli military to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Their reasoning is that these sites have never been so vulnerable, following Israeli air strikes last October, which destroyed much of Iran's air-defence systems. But Israel knows it cannot attack Iran while the US is engaged in diplomacy with it, hence its frustration at the Trump announcement.
Iran knows this, and the US-Houthi truce agreement is clearly a move by Iran to keep open the diplomatic channels with the US and forestall any possible Israeli attack. The foreign minister of Oman, the broker for the Iran-US talks, hinted at this when he said he hoped the US-Houthi deal would lead to 'further progress on many regional issues.' And Iranian officials were quoted by The New York Times saying that Iran had persuaded the Houthis to stop their attacks on US shipping and linked this to the nuclear talks.
Despite these apparent differences between the US and Israel, however, it is a mistake to assume that President Trump's often unpredictable decision making, conducted without consultation with close allies, necessarily denotes division on substantive policy. For example, the UK, which partners the US in air strikes on the Houthis, was also surprised by Trump's announcement of this truce with the Houthis.
Moreover, there is agreement between the US and Israel on basic regional policy – whether this is stopping Hamas ruling Gaza in the future or preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Even while the US administration talks to Iran, it has not withdrawn the threat of military action. Trump himself warned he would strike Iran if it did not permanently disable the centrifuges that are enriching uranium to a level approaching that needed for a nuclear device. 'There are only two alternatives there, blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously.'
Trump's interlocutor with Iran, Steve Witkoff, was quick to deny that the US was seeking another Obama-style nuclear deal that would allow Iran to simply delay work on making a bomb. He declared in an interview that stopping Iran having any enrichment programme was a US red line. 'They cannot have centrifuges; they cannot have anything that allows them to build a weapon.' Witkoff also made clear he would not sit in endless talks while Iran forged ahead with its nuclear programme. 'If the Iranians make the mistake of thinking they can procrastinate at the table, then they won't see that much of me.'
All allies of the US have occasionally felt blindsided by statements from President Trump, who clearly enjoys pulling surprises on America's friends and foes alike. In his second term, he shows a willingness to experiment with policy initiatives and make changes if he feels they are not working, for example in setting US import tariffs. In this context it is rash to conclude that the US is fundamentally altering alliances with its long-standing allies like Israel.
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