Is Trump Borrowing Biden’s ‘Bear Hug’ Approach to Israel?
While he was in office, the media often described former President Joe Biden’s approach to Israel as a “bear hug.” Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli newspaper of record, defined it as “holding someone close in order to restrain him, not just to show love.” By providing military aid and moral support to Israel’s war effort, Biden’s supporters argued, the president would be able to tell Israeli leaders hard truths behind closed doors and convince them to de-escalate the war.
The Trump administration has publicly rejected this approach. “My understanding of the bear hug from what I’ve been reading is a hovering kind of control over Israel’s decisions,” said Elbridge Colby, whom Trump has nominated as undersecretary of defense for policy, at his confirmation hearing this week. “We should be looking for allies who are able but also willing to do things more autonomously and take action.”
But President Donald Trump may be succeeding using the exact same strategy that Biden failed at. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir vowed on Wednesday that 2025 would be “a year of war” with a focus on Gaza and Iran. Trump is simply not letting it happen. The same day as Zamir’s declaration, the White House confirmed that the U.S. government was in direct talks with Hamas for the first time in decades. Behind the scenes, the Israeli government reportedly told the Trump administration that it felt blindsided and annoyed by the U.S. going behind its back.Â
No one would accuse Trump of being soft on Hamas. Along with confirming direct negotiations, he threatened Hamas leaders and the Palestinian people alike that they will be “DEAD!” if Hamas does not release Israeli hostages. And Trump insisted that he is “sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job.”
Two days later, Trump confirmed that he had sent Iran a letter asking for talks on its nuclear program. He told reporters that “we’re down to final strokes” for Iran to choose between “a peace deal” or “the other” way to “solve the problem.” Neither Israeli leaders nor Republican hawks—who fought tooth and nail against past U.S.-Iranian diplomacy—have had much to say against Trump’s desire to negotiate. Even the ultra-hawkish Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) portrayed his own goal as “an airtight diplomatic deal” during Colby’s confirmation hearing.
Trump’s tough-guy image and aggressively pro-Israel reputation have given him the political capital to conduct diplomacy and make compromises in the Middle East. It’s a success of his “peace through strength” pitch, though not in the way his hawkish supporters may have expected. Only Richard Nixon could go to China, as the saying goes. It took a leader with solid Col
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