by Herb Keinon
Trump admires Israel, believes he has done more for it than anyone else, yet warns it is bleeding legitimacy with every passing day of war.
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US President Donald Trump is not known for nuanced wording, and an interview Friday with the Daily Caller, where he talked about Israel and Gaza, is a case in point.
Asked about the war, he said Israel “may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world of public relations… They’re gonna have to get that war over with.”
This was not the first time Trump has sounded this note. Back in March 2024 – on the same day the Biden administration declined to veto a UN resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire – he told Israel Hayom that Israel needed to “Finish up your war… You gotta get it done.”
The message has been consistent: Trump admires Israel, believes he has done more for it than anyone else, yet warns it is bleeding legitimacy with every passing day of war. The subtext is clear: Israel’s military clock is not the only one ticking; so too is the diplomatic clock. And it is running down faster.
In the same Daily Caller interview, Trump also raised some eyebrows by saying that 15 years ago “Israel had the strongest lobby in Congress of anything or body, or of any company or corporation or state that I’ve ever seen… They had total control over Congress, and now they don’t.”
At its peak, AIPAC was the most formidable presence in Washington. It kept support for Israel strong on both sides of the aisle, such that for an aspiring politician – as Trump put it – “You couldn’t speak badly” about Israel.
That was then.
American sympathy for Israel is eroding, especially among young voters
Today, Pew data shows American sympathy for Israel eroding, especially among young voters – including younger Republicans. The once-solid bipartisan wall has fissures. For Israel, those shifts cannot be ignored.Trump, obviously, is not wrong about Israel “not winning the world of public relations.” Images from Gaza that have flooded global screens have overshadowed the October 7 atrocities that started this war.
And yet, to stop the war months ago – when Trump first urged Israel to “finish it up” – would have frozen the battlefield at a very different place.
In March 2024, Hamas still had many of its leaders and strongholds, Hezbollah had not been dealt a heavy blow, Iran had not yet been struck, Syria was still under Bashar Assad’s control, and the Houthi leadership was intact.
Today, Hamas is a shell of what it was, Hezbollah has been vastly diminished, Iran is reeling from unprecedented strikes on its nuclear and missile programs, and even the Houthis must now wonder where the next Israeli blow will come from. These achievements did not happen in spite of the war dragging on – they happened because of it.
This is the paradox at the heart of Trump’s critique. The longer the war lasts, the worse it is for Israel’s international standing. But the longer it lasts, the more Israel degrades its enemies’ capabilities.
To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics, both at home and abroad, this looks like endless war; in Netanyahu’s telling, however, it is a long fight yielding historic returns.
And here is where the deeper story lies.
The new Israeli war doctrine
For decades, Israel’s security doctrine assumed that the country could not afford long wars. A small state, heavily dependent on reserve soldiers and vulnerable on multiple fronts, Israel believed it had to fight quickly, decisively, and wrap things up before economic and social stamina ran out.The Six Day War in 1967 was the ideal – short, sharp, and overwhelming. The Yom Kippur War in 1973, though it lasted less than three weeks, was the cautionary tale: a grinding reserve mobilization that continued for months, staggering casualties, and a society shaken to its core. The lesson etched into Israel’s psyche was that time worked against it – that protracted fighting would sap its strength faster than its enemies’.
This war is rewriting that doctrine. Nearly two years in, with 40,000 additional reservists called up for duty on Tuesday, Israel is showing it can sustain a long campaign.
The home front is stressed but functioning. The economy has absorbed shocks but not collapsed. The reserves have proven resilient. The hope of Israel’s enemies – that it would crack first – has not materialized. Quite the contrary: Hamas, Iran, and their proxies are the ones steadily being ground down by time.
This marks a serious departure from past assumptions. Israel is not as “small” as it once was. Its population is larger and its economy much more robust. It has shown endurance beyond what many expected. The longer the war runs, the weaker its enemies become – not the other way around.
And this brings us back to Trump. His critique – that Israel is losing world opinion – cannot be dismissed. He is right. Legitimacy is bleeding away. But the irony is sharp. The very longevity that drains international patience and support is what has enabled Israel’s military gains.
Trump’s words are not just commentary; they are a mirror of American politics. His claim that the “Israel lobby” is weaker, that “You couldn’t speak badly” about Israel 15 years ago, but you can now, is an assessment of the erosion of bipartisan consensus.
His warning that Israel is “not winning the world of public relations” is an understatement. What is striking, however, is his insistence that “nobody has done more for Israel” than he has – a line he repeats with pride, presumably because he thinks it still resonates politically.
Trump’s latest comments lay bare Israel’s dilemma.
Winning the war but losing the world is not a sustainable formula. Yet, neither is halting the war before the job is done. That tension – between endurance on the battlefield and legitimacy abroad – remains unresolved. Tuesday’s massive call-up of reservists shows Israel has chosen, for now, to fight on.
Trump is not pressuring Israel to stop. But he is warning that there is a steep price in legitimacy to be paid, and that this final push to defeat Hamas should not drag on endlessly.
Or, in his words, “They’re gonna have to get that war over with.”
Herb Keinon
Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-866125
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