2 min read
The mood-swinging US administration is a conundrum for every government on the planet.
Britain and Israel, however, have their own domestic political storms - and as such stand particularly exposed to vicissitudes of Donald Trump’s foreign policies.
Which was why today’s meeting between the British and Israeli Prime Ministers was more of a shotgun wedding than long-planned matrimony.
The photo-op mix-up outside Number 10 just before the meeting only enhanced the sense of last-minute fumbling, as opposed to a slow and meaningful courtship.
Prime Minister Theresa May is grappling with the monumental political and bureaucratic puzzle that is Brexit and the urgent need to find reliable new business partners around the world.
For Mrs May there must be the concern that at any time Donald Trump could tweet out a u-turn on his pledge to do a “fast” post-Brexit deal if he is not promised a cup of tea with the Queen.
Israel, with its digital prowess and well-established high-tech business links to the UK, is an important candidate for a bilateral accord, if lower down on the trade-deal hit list.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu has his own serious problems - and urgent needs that flow from them. He is the subject of a series of police investigations into claims he accepted bribes and tried to strike a deal for favourable media coverage.
The right wing of his government is agitating for the government to use the Trump government’s relaxed view of settlement-building to annexe large new chucks of the West Bank, a move that could precipitate the break-up of his coalition.
Despite this chaos – and partly as a distraction from it – Mr Netanyahu spent a large portion of his time with Mrs May urging her to support him in his fight against terror-sponsoring Iran.
While Mr Netanyahu was more than happy to embrace Mrs May’s push on trade, and she echoed some of his sentiments on Iran, their agendas look very different, especially when it comes to settlements.
Only a month and a half ago, British diplomats helped draft UN Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank as a “flagrant violation” of international law.
Two weeks later, the departing US Secretary of State John Kerry came under fire from Mrs May, who called his attack on the Israeli government as the most right-wing in history “inappropriate”.
However, the British Prime Minister's apparent u-turn was widely seen as a move to please the pro-settlement Trump administration than outreach to the Israelis.
And in their meeting, Mrs May reiterated the UK’s opposition to settlement activity. She also made it clear she supported the nuclear deal with Iran that Mr Netanyahu has long decried as a disaster for the West.
Despite these mixed messages, amid the maelstrom kicked up by Mr Trump, Israel and the UK must now see each other as relatively reliable partners.
The two leaders have much in common. Both are playing to their nationalist base at home, both are early friends of Mr Trump, and both are confused as each other about his next move. The newlyweds could still have a happy future.
